Goiter prevalence and urinary iodine concentration in Slovenian adolescents.
BACKGROUND
Slovenian school-age children are, as are more than half of European school-age children, still considered to be iodine deficient. In 1999, supplementation of salt was increased from 10 to 25 mg of KI/kg of salt.


OBJECTIVE
The objective of our study was to determine the success of this intervention.


METHODS
Twelve hundred sixty-four girls (mean age +/- SD: 15.7 +/- 0.6 years) and 1200 boys (15.8 +/- 0.8 years) representing 10% of all 15-year-old Slovenian adolescents were studied. Thyroid size was estimated by clinical examination in all subjects and by ultrasound when enlarged thyroid was suspected. Thyroid volume was also determined by ultrasound in 108 random iodine-sufficient adolescents. In addition, urinary iodine concentration was determined in all subjects.


RESULTS
Enlarged thyroid was determined by clinical examination and ultrasound in 0.9% of all subjects. In randomly selected iodine-sufficient subjects, enlarged thyroid was determined in 4.6%. Median urinary iodine concentration for the population was 140 microg/L. In all regions it was greater than or equal to 100 microg/L. Values less than 50 microg/L were determined in 2.5% of all subjects.


CONCLUSIONS
Slovenian adolescents are iodine sufficient and the prevalence of goiter is low, indicating that increased KI supplementation of salt in 1999 was successful.
Kotnik
P
P
Department of Pediatric Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism, University Children's Hospital, Ljubljana, Slovenia.
Sirca Campa
A
A
Zupancic
M
M
Stimec
M
M
Smole
K
K
Mis
N Fidler
NF
Battelino
T
T
Krzisnik
C
C
D000293:Adolescent; D003404:Creatinine / Q000652:urine; D019587:Dietary Supplements; D005260:Female; D006042:Goiter / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000652:urine*; D006043:Goiter, Endemic / Q000453:epidemiology; D006801:Humans; D007455:Iodine / Q000172:deficiency* / Q000652:urine*; D008297:Male; D015995:Prevalence; D017524:Slovenia; D017673:Sodium Chloride, Dietary; D013961:Thyroid Gland / Q000473:pathology
D017673:Sodium Chloride, Dietary; D007455:Iodine; D003404:Creatinine