[Iodine deficiency and iodine prophylaxis experience in Sicily]

Twenty years ago we described an area of goiter endemia in North-Eastern Sicily. In this area endemic goiter was associated to a variable degree of iodine deficiency and, in some places, also to an increased thiocyanate urine excretion. Our studies have demonstrated a strict relationship between iodine deficiency and congenital hypothyroidism (both permanent and transient), an increased prevalence of autonomously functioning thyroid nodules and an increased prevalence of thyroid cancer (follicular and anaplastic histotypes). A number of cases of endemic cretinism have also been described. An active iodine prophylaxis program has been carried in the town of Troina in the years 1979-87, by iodinating the municipal water supply. This intervention caused the disappearance of goiter in schoolchildren in only five years. In the last 20 years the prevalence of goiter has decreased in all endemic areas probably because of the "silent prophylaxis", due to improved socio-economic conditions and industrial food consumption. Today the persistence of endemic goiter confirms the inadequacy of the silent iodine prophylaxis and the need to immediately introduce an active iodine prophylaxis in Sicily.