Thyroid disease-related sleep disorders and its diagnostic and therapeutic recommendations: A literature review

Abstract

As perioperative medicine evolves, more hospitals are offering comfort sleep clinics. Thyroid disorders (e.g., hypothyroidism, hyperthyroidism, and thyroid cancer) affect the peripheral circadian clock. Elevated serum thyroid-stimulating hormone levels have been found to associate with the incidence of thyroid cancer in humans, but the relationship between circadian disruption and thyroid disease requires further investigation. Malignant transformation of thyroid nodules is characterized by disruption of the expression of biological clock genes. Sleep clinics often see patients complaining of sleepiness and tinnitus. These patients often have comorbid thyroid disorders and are therefore highly susceptible to misdiagnosis or underdiagnosis. In this article, we first summarize this category of disorders, which we propose to classify as insomnia secondary to somatic disease and define as thyroid disease-related sleep disorder (TSD). The primary and common clinical complaints of TSD patients are different types of sleep disorders. In addition, we attempt to provide some preliminary diagnostic and therapeutic recommendations for TSD in the hope that it may assist healthcare professionals in the early diagnosis and management of this disorder.