Zulewski score for hypothyroidism

[vocalEK]

This is old (1997), but is still being used in clinical trials for assessment/selection of participants.

Link is to full text:

academic.oup.com/jcem/artic...

Estimation of Tissue Hypothyroidism by a New Clinical Score: Evaluation of Patients with Various Grades of Hypothyroidism and Controls

Henryk Zulewski, Beat Müller, Pascale Exer, André R. Miserez, Jean-Jacques Staub

[jimh111]

I use this frequently to remind myself of hypothyroid markers. For example, slow ankle reflexes are 93.5% specific for hypothyroidism, a damn site better than TSH.

[Aurealis]

Another interesting article, and useful. Thanks for sharing

[vocalEK]

It's nice being retired. I can research topics wherever my curiosity leads me.

[Marz]

Seems to be lots of common sense when it comes to symptoms - the ones so often ignored by the GP. Also T3 mentioned. Have NICE read this ?

Thanks for posting. 😊

[vocalEK in reply to Marz]

Yes. "In the subgroup of patients with diminished T3, 84% were assessed as clinically hypothyroid (Billewicz index, 76%), whereas 40% of the patients with normal T3 reached the hypothyroid range (Billewicz index, 8%)." So much for "sub-clinical hypothyroid." Seems to me that since the world "clinical" is used, if someone has 3 or more clinical symptoms of hypothyroidism you can't honestly say they are SUB clinical.

[Marz in reply to vocalEK]

Sub clinical is a term that usually has me wanting to know more from Forum posts - as invariably the FT3 has not been tested ...

[1piglet]

Can we test this ourselves at home?

[vocalEK in reply to 1piglet]

I don't see why not.

[1piglet in reply to vocalEK]

This is the first I have heard of it - how would I do it? Sorry to sound a bit dim!

[vocalEK in reply to 1piglet]

"The frequencies of the 14 symptoms and signs in the derivation sample are shown in Fig. 1." The major tricky one for me would be ankle reflex time. Seems to me you would have to ask your doctor to administer it and then ask whether your response time would be considered normal or brisk. healthline.com/health/brisk...

[1piglet in reply to vocalEK]

Thank you

[SilverAvocado in reply to vocalEK]

I found this quite interesting page with several videos of the ankle test being done.

It look like it could be done with a helpful friend, although you might struggle to interpret what you see. Maybe two helpful friends, one who is definitely not hypothyroid to compare the results.

functionalps.com/blog/2011/...

[SilverAvocado]

Thanks for posting, very interesting paper! A late reply because this is how long it's taken me to settle down and read the thing.