Neurodevelopmental status in children with congenital hypothyroidism at the children’s hospital and the institute of the child health Multan.

Objectives: To determine the neurodevelopmental status in children with congenital hypothyroidism. Study Design: Cross Sectional Study. Setting: Department of Pediatric Endocrine and Developmental Pediatrics Outpatient at The Children’s Hospital and The Institute of the Child Health (CHICH) Multan. Period: January to December 2019. Material & Methods: A total of 119 children, 1-5years of age having congenital hypothyroidism were included. Their socioeconomical status, age at which the diagnosis was made, duration of thyroxine intake was noted. Development in domains of personal-social, fine motor-adaptive, language and gross motor skills was assessed by using The Denver developmental screening test (DDST). Developmental quotient of each domain was measured and less than 70% was considered significant delayed. SPSS-20 was used for statistical analysis. Results: Out of 119 patients, 47.8% were male, 61.3% were among the age group of 1-3 years and the mean age was 1.40 ± 0.489 years. Forty-five percent (45.4%) belonged to low and 47.1% to middle socioeconomical status. Only 46.2% children started taking thyroxine within 2 months of life. Significant delay in personal-social domain was detected in 73.9% (n=88) children while 80.7% (n=96), 80.7% (n=96) and 86.6% (n=103) patients had significant developmental delay in fine motor-adaptive, language and gross motor skills respectively. Developmental delay was significantly low in children started on thyroxine therapy within 2-months of age (p-value ≤ 0.05 for all domains of development. Conclusion: Children with congenital hypothyroidism suffer from delayed development, so these patients must be referred for developmental therapy along with medical therapy.