Patient Population and Test Utilization for Thyroid Function in Local Clinics and Hospitals in Korea

We evaluated the utilization and characteristics of thyroid function test (TFT) results, including serum thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH), free thyroxine (free T4), and total triiodothyronine (total T3) in Korean adults who visited local clinics and hospitals between 2018 and 2020. We obtained TFT results for 69,575 specimens from 47,685 adult Korean patients (4878 men and 42,807 women) with a mean age of 42.7 (standard deviation of 13.2) years. Among them, 23,581 specimens were tested for TSH only, 38,447 specimens were tested for TSH and free T4 (including 17,978 specimens without total T3), and 20,469 specimens were tested for all three, i.e., TSH, free T4, and total T3. The proportion of euthyroid was 80.0% among all 69,575 specimens, 71.2% among specimens with TSH and free T4, and 64.2% among specimens with all three TFTs. TFT patterns that were difficult to interpret and needed more clinical information were observed for about 6.9% of the 20,469 specimens with all three TFTs. Among the 20,469 specimens with all three TFTs, no specimen had increases in all three. Information on the prevalence of specimen results of TFTs would be helpful to expand our knowledge of patient population characteristics and to improve test utilization.