WORLD JOURNAL OF ADVANCE
HEALTHCARE RESEARCH

Amjad A. Ali, Ibrahim I. Abdullatif, Suleiman B. Mahmoud, Roushan Mubarak and Zeina A. Hamama*

ABSTRACT

Subacute thyroiditis (SAT) is a transient inflammation in thyroid gland, which etiology is completely unclear. The treatment is aimed at first place to mitigate inflammation. This research was performed due to the recent increase in the number of cases of subacute thyroiditis in the Syrian Arab Republic, the spread of infections during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the lack of local studies on the differences between the treatments used in patients with SAT. The aim of this retrospective study was to compare the therapeutic effects of prednisolone and non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs in terms of the time needed for treatment (TT), the time needed for symptoms to disappear (TS), and the return of laboratory values to their normal state. In this study, 50 consecutive Syrian patients—44 females (88%), 6 males (12%)—who had been diagnosed with SAT were treated either with corticosteroids (n = 27), NSAIDs (n = 19) or NSAIDs with corticosteroids (n = 4). The time period for resolution of symptoms (TS) was shorter with prednisolone than NSAIDs (8.7?3.719, vs 16.31?6.07 days, p=0.00001); however, the time needed for full recovery (TT) was shorter under the NSAIDs drugs than prednisolone but the difference was not statistically significant (35.52?19.59, vs 38.222?15.4 days, p=0.372). The time required for the symptoms to disappear, and the time required for total treatment are longer in the case of severe infections than in cases of moderate infections, regardless of the type of treatment used. There were no statistically significant differences in these times between mild and moderate cases.