Abstract
The dose of levothyroxine required for maintaining euthyroid state in patients after total thyreoidectomy may vary depending on several factors. The most important of them is the weight, but there are other physiological (age, height, gender, diet) and pathological or other diseases related factors (drug use, impaired absorption and pharmakokinetics of thyroxine).
In groups of 219 and 144 patients after total thyreoidectomy for Graves'disease and low risk thyroid cancer(with already normal levels of thyreotropine) respectively, we investigated the influence of age, the cause of operation and gender on the need of thyroxine. We found, in accordance with the majority of studies, a lower dose of thyroxine required in the higher age.
The difference between men and women was not confirmed, but the results of other works are also controversial.