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Background: Our aim is to study the regional variability in the request of thyroid laboratory tests from primary care facilities in Spain and to investigate a potential inappropriate request and its economic societal impact.
Methods: Spain is divided into 17 autonomous communities (AACCs) which are in turn divided in Health Departments that cover a geographic area and its population and a laboratory that attends the needs of every inhabitant. Each participating laboratory was required to report the number of thyroid tests requested from primary care during year 2014 and to provide organizational data. The request of every test per 1000 inhabitants and ratio of related tests (free thyroxine (FT4)/thyrotropin (TSH), triiodothironine (FT3)/TSH, antithyroglobulin antibody (ATG)/antiperoxidase antibody (TPO)) were calculated and compared in different AACCs with more than 4 participants. The economic costs taking into account reagent cost were calculated.
Results: 110 laboratories participated (27,798,262 inhabitants). Close to 6 million TSH tests were requested, representing an expense of more than 10 million euros. That corresponds to 18 million euros when extrapolating for the whole Spanish population, only in reagent cost. The number of TSH requests per 1000 inhabitants in the different AACCs ranged from 198 to 289. FT4 was ordered more than twice as frequently in some regions compared to others. TPO request per 1000 inhabitants ranged from 0.2 to 11.2.
Conclusions: There was a significant over-request and regional variability of thyroid laboratory tests in primary care in Spain, resulting in a high economic impact on society.
DOI: 10.7754/Clin.Lab.2017.170101
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