Resumen

ALAVEZ MARTIN, Ernesto; RODRIGUEZ GONZALEZ, Julio C.  y  MARRERO RODRIGUEZ, María T.. Present state and prospects of tests related to the thyroid function study. Rev Cubana Endocrinol [online]. 2003, vol.14, n.1, pp. 0-0. ISSN 1561-2953.

The thyroid diseases may be diagnosed in most of cases by the clinics. However, there are circumstances that required thyroid function tests to correctly assess the patient in initial stages of thyroid dysfunction and give an adequate treatment on an individual basis and the follow-up of the disease. This review makes reference to the tests used to assess the condition of the thyroid function and mentions their advantages, limitations and present trends. The determination of TSH by second and third generation procedures allow setting up diagnoses of primary hyperthyroidism and hypothyroidism, even in the subclinical forms of both entities since or hypersecretion or inhibition are respectively exposed, and they also allow prescribing the right dose of 1-Levothyroxine and orienting towards a hypophyseal cause of thyroid dysfunction. T4 determination is of great value for finding out the intensity of thyroid dysfunction and furthermore assessing the effectiveness of the treatment in the first weeks. T3 determination is mainly indicated when the so-called T3-caused hyperthyroidism is suspected. The determination of total T4 and T3 gives rise to a wrong interpretation regarding the conditions that change the thyroxine-transporting globulin (TBG). The present trend is the use of TSH as an initial test for diagnosing the thyroid dysfunction, which should be indicated taking the clinic into account, and if necessary, it should be associated with the determination of free T4 or free T3.

Palabras clave : THYROID FUNCTION TESTS [methods]; IMMUNORADIOMETRIC ASSAY [methods]; THYROID DISEASES.