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IMPORTANCE It is unclear whether levothyroxine treatment provides clinically important benefits in adults aged 80 years and older with subclinical hypothyroidism. OBJECTIVE To determine the association of levothyroxine treatment for subclinical hypothyroidism with thyroid-related quality of life in adults aged 80 years and older. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS Prospectively planned combined analysis of data involving community-dwelling adults aged 80 years and older with subclinical hypothyroidism. Data from a randomized clinical trial were combined with a subgroup of participants aged 80 years and older from a second clinical trial. The trials were conducted between April 2013 and May 2018. Final follow-up was May 4, 2018. EXPOSURES Participants were randomly assigned to receive levothyroxine (n = 112; 52 participants from the first trial and 60 from the second trial) or placebo (n = 139; 53 participants from the first trial and 86 from the second trial). MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES Co-primary outcomes were Thyroid-Related Quality of Life Patient-Reported Outcome (ThyPRO) questionnaire scores for the domains of hypothyroid symptoms and tiredness at 1 year (range, 0-100; higher scores indicate worse quality of life; minimal clinically important difference, 9). RESULTS Of 251 participants (mean age, 85 years; 118 [47%] women), 105 were included from the first clinical trial and 146 were included from the second clinical trial. A total of 212 participants (84%) completed the study. The hypothyroid symptoms score decreased from 21.7 at baseline to 19.3 at 12 months in the levothyroxine group vs from 19.8 at baseline to 17.4 at 12 months in the placebo group (adjusted between-group difference, 1.3 [95% CI, −2.7 to 5.2]; P = .53). The tiredness score increased from 25.5 at baseline to 28.2 at 12 months in the levothyroxine group vs from 25.1 at baseline to 28.7 at 12 months in the placebo group (adjusted between-group difference, −0.1 [95% CI, −4.5 to 4.3]; P = .96). At least 1 adverse event occurred in 33 participants (29.5%) in the levothyroxine group (the most common adverse event was cerebrovascular accident, which occurred in 3 participants [2.2%]) and 40 participants (28.8%) in the placebo group (the most common adverse event was pneumonia, which occurred in 4 [3.6%] participants). CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE In this prospectively planned analysis of data from 2 clinical trials involving adults aged 80 years and older with subclinical hypothyroidism, treatment with levothyroxine, compared with placebo, was not significantly associated with improvement in hypothyroid symptoms or fatigue. These findings do not support routine use of levothyroxine for treatment of subclinical hypothyroidism in adults aged 80 years and older.

BackgroundSubclinical hypothyroidism (SCH) is a common condition in elderly people, defined as elevated serum thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH) with normal circulating free thyroxine (fT4). Evidence is lacking about the effect of thyroid hormone treatment. We describe the protocol of a large randomised controlled trial (RCT) of Levothyroxine treatment for SCH.MethodsParticipants are community-dwelling subjects aged ≥65 years with SCH, diagnosed by elevated TSH levels (≥4.6 and ≤19.9 mU/L) on a minimum of two measures ≥ three months apart, with fT4 levels within laboratory reference range. The study is a randomised double-blind placebo-controlled parallel group trial, starting with levothyroxine 50 micrograms daily (25 micrograms in subjects <50Kg body weight or known coronary heart disease) with titration of dose in the active treatment group according to TSH level, and a mock titration in the placebo group. The primary outcomes are changes in two domains (hypothyroid symptoms and fatigue / vitality) on the thyroid-related quality of life questionnaire (ThyPRO) at one year. The study has 80% power (at p = 0.025, 2-tailed) to detect a change with levothyroxine treatment of 3.0% on the hypothyroid scale and 4.1% on the fatigue / vitality scale with a total target sample size of 750 patients.Secondary outcomes include general health-related quality of life (EuroQol), fatal and non-fatal cardiovascular events, handgrip strength, executive cognitive function (Letter Digit Coding Test), basic and instrumental activities of daily living, haemoglobin, blood pressure, weight, body mass index and waist circumference. Patients are monitored for specific adverse events of interest including incident atrial fibrillation, heart failure and bone fracture.DiscussionThis large multicentre RCT of levothyroxine treatment of subclinical hypothyroidism is powered to detect clinically relevant change in symptoms / quality of life and is likely to be highly influential in guiding treatment of this common condition.Trial registrationClinicaltrials.gov NCT01660126; registered 8th June 2012.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12902-017-0156-8) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Higher odds of having anemia were observed in participants with both hypothyroid function and hyperthyroid function. In addition, reduced thyroid function at baseline showed a trend of increased risk of developing anemia during follow-up. It remains to be assessed in a randomized controlled trial whether treatment is effective in reducing anemia.

ObjectivesTo estimate and compare the prevalence and type of potentially inappropriate prescribing (PIP) and potential prescribing omissions (PPOs) among community-dwelling older adults (≥65 years) enrolled to a clinical trial in three European countries.DesignA secondary analysis of the Thyroid Hormone Replacement for Subclinical Hypothyroidism Trial dataset.ParticipantsA subset of 48/80 PIP and 22/34 PPOs indicators from the Screening Tool of Older Persons Prescriptions/Screening Tool to Alert doctors to Right Treatment (STOPP/START) V2 criteria were applied to prescribed medication data for 532/737 trial participants in Ireland, Switzerland and the Netherlands.ResultsThe overall prevalence of PIP was lower in the Irish participants (8.7%) compared with the Swiss (16.7%) and Dutch (12.5%) participants (P=0.15) and was not statistically significant. The overall prevalence of PPOs was approximately one-quarter in the Swiss (25.3%) and Dutch (24%) participants and lower in the Irish (14%) participants (P=0.04) and the difference was statistically significant. The hypnotic Z-drugs were the most frequent PIP in Irish participants, (3.5%, n=4), while it was non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug and oral anticoagulant combination, sulfonylureas with a long duration of action, and benzodiazepines (all 4.3%, n=7) in Swiss, and benzodiazepines (7.1%, n=18) in Dutch participants. The most frequent PPOs in Irish participants were vitamin D and calcium in osteoporosis (3.5%, n=4). In the Swiss and Dutch participants, they were bone antiresorptive/anabolic therapy in osteoporosis (9.9%, n=16, 8.6%, n=22) respectively. The odds of any PIP after adjusting for age, sex, multimorbidity and polypharmacy were (adjusted OR (aOR)) 3.04 (95% CI 1.33 to 6.95, P<0.01) for Swiss participants and aOR 1.74 (95% CI 0.79 to 3.85, P=0.17) for Dutch participants compared with Irish participants. The odds of any PPOs were aOR 2.48 (95% CI 1.27 to 4.85, P<0.01) for Swiss participants and aOR 2.10 (95% CI 1.11 to 3.96, P=0.02) for Dutch participants compared with Irish participants.ConclusionsThis study has estimated and compared the prevalence and type of PIP and PPOs among this cohort of community-dwelling older people. It demonstrated a significant difference in the prevalence of PPOs between the three populations. Further research is urgently needed into the impact of system level factors as this has important implications for patient safety, healthcare provision and economic costs.