Does assessment of carbonic anhydrase activity support the diagnosis of various thyroid disorders

Abstract

ObjectiveTo evaluate the activity of carbonic anhydrase (CA) in various thyroid disorder patients and their results were compared with euthyroid acting as a control. MethodsTwo hundred and sixty-three participants were enrolled for the present study with ages ranging from 6 months to 74 years. Among them, hypothyroid, hyperthyroid and euthyroid subjects were chosen. Twelve hours' fasting blood samples were collected from all the patients reported to Medicine Out Patients Department and assessment of CA activity was done in all the three category patients. The data from the patients and controls were compared by using the student's t-test. The values were expressed as mean±standard deviation. Microsoft Excel for Windows 2003 was used for statistical analysis. P<0.05 were considered to indicate statistical significance. ResultsThe serum levels of CA activities were observed to be higher in hyperthyroid patients compared to hypothyroid ones and the CA activity in euthyroid subjects were comparatively higher than hypothyroid subjects. It was also observed that the serum CA activity was significantly correlated with both T4 (r=0.997, P<0.001) and FT4 (r=0.590, P=0.039) values. ConclusionThough our study contains a very small sample size, as a pilot study we have demonstrated that the serum levels of CA activity is associated with the serum thyroxine levels.