Establishment and Development of a National Newborn Screening Programme for Congenital Hypothyroidism in Turkey

Objective: To assess the Turkish National Newborn Screening Programme (NNSP) for congenital hypothyroidism (CH). Retrospective study based on the data from NNSP.
Methods: Since December 2006, a nationwide screening programme for CH has been conducted in Turkey by the Turkish Directorate of Public Health (TDPH) in cooperation with several institutions. We evaluated the database between January 2008 and July 2010 of this programme. According to the methodology of the NNSP, between three and five days of age (or at discharge from the hospital, if this occurs earlier) blood specimens were routinely collected from neonates on filter paper, by puncturing the heel. The accepted thyroid-stimulating hormone cut-off level for recall was 20 mU/L initially and 15 mU/L subsequently. The incidence of possible CH by years was reported.
Results: During the evaluation period, 3223765 newborns were tested. The mean annual incidence of possible CH showed a gradual increase over the years (1: 888 in 2008, 1: 592 in 2009, and 1: 469 in 2010). Regional differences were noted. Although the mean age of blood sampling did not change by years, the mean age at notification for suspected CH decreased from 19.2 to 15.7 days from 2008 to 2010.
Conclusions: We reported the first assessment of NNSP in Turkey. An improvement in performance measures for the CH screening programme has been noted. Knowledge on incidence of confirmed CH is not yet available in the database.