Moderate to severe iodine deficiency in three endemic goitre areas from the Black Sea region and the capital of Turkey

Endemic goitre is still an important and underestimated health concern in T urkey. The overall prevalence had been calculated as 30.3% by palpation in a national survey conducted in 1995. However, direct evidence that iodine d eficiency (ID) is the major cause of the endemic were lacking until now. We measured sonographic thyroid volumes (STV), urinary iodine concentrations (UIC) in 1226 school age children (SAC) (9-11 year old) from Ankara the cap ital of Turkey located in the central Anatolia, and three highly endemic go itre areas of the Black Sea region. A considerable number of school age chi ldren (SAC) were found to have STV exceeding the recommended upper normal l imits for their age and gender obtained from iodine-replete European childr en (i.e. 26.7, 40.3, 44.8 and 51.7% of children from Ankara, Kastamonu, Bay burt and Trabzon respectively). UIC indicated moderate to severe ID in thes e areas with median concentrations of 25.5, 30.5, 16.0 and 14 mug/L respect ively. This study showed severe to moderate ID as the primary etiological f actor for the goitre endemic observed in Ankara and the Black Sea region of Turkey.