Prevalence study of XXXX in the elderly of Taiwan.

@entity1 @entity1375 @entity2743 @entity1378 @entity792 @entity1374
The present study was aimed at investigating the prevalence of @entity1374 in the elderly, aged 65 years or older, in a community of southern Taiwan. By using the records of the local household registry, a sampling frame for the elderly population was constructed, and a sample of 1,400 subjects was drawn by simple random sampling. After the exclusion of nonresponse subjects, 917 subjects aged between 65 and 88 years (mean 71.9) were included in our survey. The serum thyrotropin levels of these @entity1 were measured by monoclonal antibodies TSH immunoradiometric assays. A normal range, 0.45-4.65 microU/ml, was determined from the middle 95% of the TSH distribution of 140 'disease-free' subjects. By reference to the normal range, 23 (2.51%) @entity1 had high (> 4.65 microU/ml), and 41 (4.47%) had low (< 0.46 microU/ml) TSH levels. The overall prevalence of @entity1374 in the sample was 6.98%. Of the 23 @entity1 with high TSH levels, 8 (34.8%) had low free T4 values (< 1.21 ng/dl), so-called @entity1375 , and of the 41 @entity1 with low TSH levels, only 1 (2.4%) had high T3 values, so-called T3 @entity2743 . Antithyroid antibodies were found in 56.5% of those with high TSH levels but only 12.2% of those with low TSH levels (odds ratio = 8.53, 95% confidence limits = 2.55-28.50, p < 0.001). This result indicates that @entity792 is still the major cause of @entity1375 in aged @entity1 . However, the prevalence of subclinical @entity1378 is higher than that of @entity1375 and it might relate to nonautoimmune factors.
