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Levothyroxine personalized treatment: is it still a dream?
No full textLevothyroxine is a milestone in the treatment of all causes of hypothyroidism. From 19th century till today, Levothyroxine experienced a great advancement, from hypodermic injections of an extract of the thyroid gland of a sheep to novel formulations, known to circumvent malabsorption issue. However, the rate of patients on suboptimal therapy is still high. Current Guidelines are clear, daily Levothyroxine dosage should be calculated based on body weight. However, we are still far away from the possibility to administer the right dosage to the right patient, for several reasons. We retrace the history of treatment with levothyroxine, pointing out strengths and weaknesses of different formulations, with particular attention to what keeps us away from tailored therapy. In the age of digitalization, the pharmaceutical industry has been giving rising importance to Digital therapeutics, that are known to be effective in reaching target therapies. By combining current knowledge of hypothyroidism therapy with cutting-edge technology, we also hypothesized what could be the future strategies to be developed in this field
Oral liquid levothyroxine treatment at breakfast: a mistake?
No full textOBJECTIVE:
Levothyroxine (L-T4) treatment with coffee, or with water followed by coffee within a few minutes, results in poor TSH response in many patients. Thyroxine is worldwide suitable in tablets form but novel formulations in soft gel capsule or liquid formulation are now available.
DESIGN:
We fortuitously observed an euthyroid patient who wrongly assumed liquid L-T4 with coffee at breakfast: after changing the assumption thirty minutes before breakfast, no change of TSH, fT4 and fT3 was observed. Once the first patient was identified, we identified additional stable euthyroid patients who assumed liquid L-T4 with coffee.
METHODS:
Patients were recruited by searching our "thyroid patients" database. All patients on liquid L-T4 treatment were contacted by phone to find out if L-T4 was taken at breakfast. We identified fifty-four patients that were submitted to TSH, fT4 and fT3 evaluation, with the following indication to assume the same dosage of L-T4 half hour before breakfast. We checked again their TSH, fT4 and fT3 values, 3 and 6 months later.
RESULTS:
No significative difference of thyroid hormonal values was observed between patients who assumed L-T4 at breakfast and after 3 and 6 months of its assumption half hour before breakfast [TSH : 2.5±1.1 vs 2.5±1.1 and 2.4±1.1 (mIU/L), respectively], [fT4: 12.4±2.4 vs 12.5±2.4 and 12.3±2.1 (pg/mL), respectively] and [fT3: 3.4±0.6 vs 3.4±0.6 and 3.3±0.5 (pg/mL), respectively].
CONCLUSION:
Oral liquid L-T4 could remove the problem of L-T4 malabsorption by coffee observed with traditional tablets formulations
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