Description

Dr. Lazarus explains if a pregnant woman should have her TSH levels (a hormone that helps to increase the size, number, and activity of the thyroid cells) checked and if so, if she will have to ask her doctor for the test.

Transcript

Currently in the world there is no, almost no clinics that are doing routine screening for TSH in early pregnancy. We don’t know whether this is cost-effective and justifiable at the moment. We are waiting for future trials, prospective trials to confirm and sustain the strategy of screening for TSH. However, the current view is that a lot of women should have TSH screened for in early pregnancy. For example, women with a family history of thyroid disease or any other autoimmune disease and various other things, they should certainly be screened for TSH. I personally believe that probably everybody should be screened for TSH, but there are implications of that in terms of cost and worry and so on. So I think it's better to wait for the results of these prospective trials.