Determination of normal human intrathyroidal iodine in Caracas population

Abstract

This study focuses on the determination of iodine content in healthy thyroid samples on male population from Caracas, Venezuela. Contribution to establish a baseline of iodine content in thyroid glands and hence to compare the iodine thyroid concentration of the Venezuelan population with other countries is also our objective. Male postmortem individual samples were analyzed using a spectrophotometric flow injection method, based on the Sandell–Kolthoff reaction. The median intrathyroidal iodine concentration was 14437677 mg/g (wet weight), ranging from 419 to 3430 mg/g, which corresponds to a median of total iodine content of 1578mg (ranging from 4 to 37). These results were higher than those values reported in the literature. No correlation of iodine content with age or weight of the healthy gland was found.