ASSOCIATION OF HYPOTHYROIDISM AND ANEMIA- STUDY FROM A REGION OF JAMMU AND KASHMIR.

Background: Iodine deficiency is the most common cause of hypothyroidism worldwide.     Anemia is often the first sign of hypothyroidism and it is often not diagnosed because hypothyroids have a lower volume of plasma which causes a false high estimation of the amount of haemoglobin in the blood. The anemia observed may be normocytic and normochromic, hypochromic and microcytic, or macrocytic.  Material methods:  The study was conducted in the Postgraduate department of Pathology and Department of Medicine, Government Medical College Jammu, Jammu and Kashmir India. It was prospective study, extending over a period of one year from 1st October 2013 to 30th September 2014. Results: Out of the 70 patients, 13 males were (18.57%) and 57 were females (81.43%) patients resulting in Male: Female ratio of 1:4.4, moreover 38(54.29%) patients presented as subclinical hypothyroidism while as 32(45.71%) patients presented as overt hypothyroidism. Thus more cases of sub-clinical hypothyroidism were seen than overt hypothyroidism in our setting. . Over all grading of anemia in all 38 anemic hypothyroid patients irrespective of gender showed that most of the patients were in the category of moderate anemia (63.16%). Conclusion: and it was observed that 38 patients had anemia so, frequency of anemia in hypothyroid patients in our setup came out to be 54%. Normocytic normochromic anemia (anemia of chronic disease) was the commonest type of anemia observed in 55.26% of anemic hypothyroid patients followed by macrocytic (21.05%) and microcytic anemia (18.42%). Key words: Anemia, Hypothyroidism, Anemia of chronic disease, Microcytic hypochromic anemia.