ABSTRACT

Background and Design:

Thyroid diseases often cause various findings in hair, skin and nails. Some of them may regress with the treatment of thyroid disease. We aimed to evaluate the cutaneous manifestations in patients with thyroid disease on treatment.

Materials and Methods:

Ninenty seven consecutive patients with thyroid disease on treatment and 50 healthy controls were included in this cross-sectional study. Thyroid disease was classiffied as autoimmune and non-autoimmune. We recorded all cutaneous manifestations and dermatological diseases.

Results:

Of 97 patients, 56 (57.7%) were autoimmune, 41 (43.3%) were non-autoimmune. Eighty four (86.4%) were on thyroid hormone therapy and 13 (23.6%) were on anti-thyroid therapy. At least one cutaneous manifestation was present in 73.2% of autoimmune group, 71.4% of non-autoimmune group and 52% of control group (p=0.05). Xerosis (p = 0.026), pruritus (p = 0.00), facial erythema (p = 0.036), flushing (p = 0.004), dry hair (p = 0.008), brittle nails (p = 0.02), dry nails (p = 0.013), longitudinal streaking on nails (p = 0.02) were more frequent in the autoimmune group than the non-autoimmune and control groups. Alopecia (p = 0.00) was more frequent in non-autoimmune group. In addition, in the patient group, diffuse hyperhidrosis (p = 0.016), nail thinning (p = 0.059) and rosacea (p = 0.03) were more frequent than the control group. At least one cutaneous manifestation, xerosis and various nail findings were more common in thyroid hormone therapy group than anti-thyroid therapy group but there was no statistically significant difference.

Conclusion:

These results suggested that various cutaneous manifestations may be seen in patients with thyroid disease on treatment too. We conclude that further studies which comparing thyroid patients on treatment and on non treatment are needed in order to clarify the effect of treatment of thyroid disease on cutaneous manifestations.