Key result
A 17-year-old girl presenting with nonspecific symptoms of abdominal pain and fatigue was diagnosed with autoimmune hypothyroidism, with a 12mm pericardial effusion as the most significant manifestation.
Why the study?
Hypothyroidism symptoms can be nonspecific in children and adolescents, and pericardial effusion is very rare in pediatric patients.
Case Report (n=1)
Highlights that pericardial effusion, while rare in children, can be a significant and reversible manifestation of unrecognized hypothyroidism.
Answers are grounded in this paper and cite their sources.
Pericardial effusion may signal unrecognized hypothyroidism in adolescents; this case report leaves open prevalence and screening implications.
Hypothyroidism is an endocrine disorder with a wide range of symptoms and multi-organ involvement. Almost all cells of the body have receptors for thyroid hormones, and the clinical picture of hypothyroidism is a result of the reduced effect of thyroid hormones on target organs and can be nonspecific, especially in children and adolescents, and thus may remain unrecognized for a longer period of time. Pericardial effusion, which occurs with a frequency of 10%-30% in adult patients with hypothyroidism, is very rare in children. Pericardial effusion, as well as all other symptoms of hypothyroidism, is reversible after the initiation of hormone replacement therapy. This is a report of a girl in whom pericardial effusion was the most significant manifestation of autoimmune thyroiditis, and in whom, at the time of diagnosis, other disorders due to the prolonged effect of low levels of thyroid hormones on target organs were also observed.
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Milijana Damnjanović (2023) conducted a case report in Hypothyroidism with pericardial effusion (n=1). Thyroid hormone replacement therapy was evaluated on Diagnosis and clinical presentation. A 17-year-old girl presenting with nonspecific symptoms of abdominal pain and fatigue was diagnosed with autoimmune hypothyroidism, with a 12mm pericardial effusion as the most significant manifestation.
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