Searchable abstracts of presentations at key conferences in endocrinology
Endocrine Abstracts (2009) 20 P94

1Faculty of Medicine, Endocrinology and Metabolic Diseases, Ankara University, Ankara, Turkey; 2The Ministry of Health of Turkey, Directorship of Health of Mother and Child and Family Planning, Ankara, Turkey; 3UNICEF-Turkey, Ankara, Turkey; 4The Ministry of Agriculture of Turkey, Directorship of Prevention and Control, Ankara, Turkey.


Objectives: Assessment and monitoring which are two major components of a sustainable programme to eliminate IDD is being performed in Turkey since 1997. The initial survey, for the assessment of the iodine status, carried out between 1997 and 1999, showed that the country was severe to moderately iodine deficient (national median UIC: 36 μg/l, goiter prevalence % 31.8). Therefore, a national IDD control program had been implemented and mandatory salt iodization were applied by July 1999 with 50–70 mg/kg KI or 25–40 mg/kg KIO3 to the household salt. The second survey was performed in 2002 in 30 cities. Over 7000 UIC of school-aged children (SAC) were determined, and the result demonstrated an obvious improvement (median UI 53 μg/l). In 2007, with the follow-up monitoring purposes, we conducted this survey in the same areas as previous surveys and studied UIC concentrations of 2280 SAC living in urban areas were examined. The overall median UIC was 130 μg/l. Median UI was ≧ 100 μg/l in 20 of 30 cities surveyed. In 8 areas (Burdur, Hatay, Kahramanmaraş, Kayseri, Bayburt, Çorum, Erzurum and Van) median UIC was between 50 and 100 μg/l, and in 2 (Bitlis and Diyarbakir) it was between 20 and 50 μg/l. Median UIC did not exceed 200 μg/l in any of the areas studied.

Conclusion: Eight years following the mandatory iodization of salt in Turkey, iodine status has reached to optimal levels in about two third of the cities studied, and ID has been eliminated in most of the urban areas. However another study reported in the meeting, showed that the situation is different in rural areas and thus needed further attention for elimination of IDD.

UIC did not exceed 200 μg/l in any of the areas studied.

Article tools

My recent searches

No recent searches.