Thyroid disorders in childhood

1. Big picture

Thyroid disorders in children are high-yield because thyroid hormone is essential for brain development, linear growth, puberty, metabolism, heart rate, and school performance.

For the exam, think in 3 clinical patterns:

Pattern	Think of	Key danger
Newborn with prolonged jaundice, poor feeding, large tongue, constipation, hypotonia	Congenital hypothyroidism	Irreversible intellectual disability if treatment delayed
School-age/adolescent with fatigue, weight gain, poor growth, delayed puberty, goiter	Acquired hypothyroidism, usually Hashimoto thyroiditis	Growth failure and pubertal delay
Child/adolescent with weight loss, tachycardia, tremor, heat intolerance, goiter, eye signs	Hyperthyroidism, usually Graves disease	Thyroid storm, arrhythmia, poor school performance

Core oral-exam sentence: “In children, thyroid disease is not only a metabolic disease; it is a growth, neurodevelopmental, and puberty disorder.”

1. Big picture

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