Thyroid Diseases of Infancy and Childhood

Thyroid Diseases of Infancy and Childhood: Effects on Behavior and Intellectual Development

Hauser P, Rovet J, editors

Washington: American Psychiatric Press; 1999. 312 pp. with index

ISBN 0-88048-767-4 (cloth)

This book, by a group of distinguished authors, presents the neurobehavioural science underlying and a clinical overview of thyroid deficiency and excess in the growing human organism.

The current knowledge of thyroid physiology and molecular genetics is reviewed in detail and is well referenced. Hence, this book is more than enough for the busy clinician.

A historical review of newborn screening programs over the past 25 years includes the complete history of thyroid screening in North America, from the Quebec experience starting in the mid-1970s to the present. The problem of false-positive results in term as well as premature infants is elucidated.

For the basic scientist, pediatrician or pediatric endocrinologist seeing newborns with positive thyroid screening tests, the later chapters on screening and long-term results of L-thyroxine therapy heighten awareness of the potential behaviour, intellectual and hearing problems faced by these children due to an otherwise treatable disorder. The association between thyroid hormone resistance syndrome and attentional disorders is intriguing. The neurobehavioural aspects of acquired thyroid disorders in children has been adequately highlighted for the clinician.

Finally, the chapters on neurodevelopmental change with thyroid-disrupting contaminants is thought-provoking for the environmentally conscious reader.

The book as a whole presents a balanced perspective on the neurobehavioural consequences of thyroid disease in infants and children and should be on the bookshelf of every pediatric library for current and future basic scientists and clinicians involved with children. It is a “must read” for every pediatric endocrinologist and child psychologist.