Goiter Prevalence and Urinary Iodine Concentration in Slovenian Adolescents

Context: Slovenian school-age children are, as are more than half of European school-age children, still considered to be iodine deficient. In 1999, supplementation of salt was increased from 10 to 25 mg of KI/kg of salt. Objective: The objective of our study was to determine the success of this intervention. Design and Patients: Twelve hundred sixty-four girls (mean age ± SD: 15.7 ± 0.6 years) and 1200 boys (15.8 ± 0.8 years) representing 10% of all 15-year-old Slovenian adolescents were studied. Thyroid size was estimated by clinical examination in all subjects and by ultrasound when enlarged thyroid was suspected. Thyroid volume was also determined by ultrasound in 108 random iodine-sufficient adolescents. In addition, urinary iodine concentration was determined in all subjects. Results: Enlarged thyroid was determined by clinical examination and ultrasound in 0.9% of all subjects. In randomly selected iodine-sufficient subjects, enlarged thyroid was determined in 4.6%. Median urinary iodine concentrat...