History and Objectives: Thyroid disorders are variant in different regions. Considering the significance of thyroid disorders, time-consuming and costly diagnostic methods and the suggestion of a scoring for early diagnosis, this study was carried out to compare the clinical and paraclinical criteria for thyroid disorders in referrals over 15 years in health centers of Kashan from 1997 to 2000.

Materials and Methods: This diagnostic strategy of this study was conducted on patients at an age range of 15-60 years and suspicious to have thyroid disorders. In this respect, Flipp Fling scoring was used. A net score greater than 18 was considered hyperthyroidism, between 11 and 18 was considered as suspicious and less than 11 was considered as euthyroidism. In hypothyroid scoring, net score greater than 19 was considered as hypothyroidism. For all patients, measurement of T3, Free T4 and TSH was requested. Patients with TSH level lower than 0.3 microgram and T4 greater than 12 and T3 greater than 180 microgram were considered as hyperthyroid and patients with TSH level greater than 5 microgram and T4 less than 4 and T3 less than 8 microgram were considered as hypothyroid.

Results: This study was carried out on 200 patients. Out of 150 suspicious cases, 31 (20.7%) were male and 119 (79.3%) were female. In addition, 100 out of them were supposed to have hyperthyroidism and 50 were supposed to have hypothyroidism. Most of the hypothyroid patients were female (80%). 78% of hypothyroid patients were female. Therefore, thyroid disorder was more common in female ones. Sensitivity of scoring method for hyperthyroid state was 91% and for hypothyroid state was 76%.

Conclusion and Recommendations: Considering the costly paraclinical tests, Flipp Fling criteria are recommended to be used for diagnosis of thyroid disorders.