Comparative study on efficacy and safety of morning dose versus evening dose of levothyroxine in treatment of hypothyroidism: an outpatient department based prospective interventional study
Background: One of the common endocrine disorders in India as well as in the world is hypothyroidism. The treatment of choice is giving levothyroxine supplement orally to the patient in an empty stomach mostly in the morning. Often many patients feel uncomfortable or inconvenient to take levothyroxine in the early morning. In those patients changing the administration time of levothyroxine may get necessary to increase the patient compliance.Methods: Drug naïve patients with primary hypothyroidism, randomly selected and assigned into two groups. Patients in group 1 received levothyroxine in the morning minimum one hour before breakfast and in group 2 levothyroxine was given at least two hours after dinner. Thyroid profile of the subjects was assessed at the baseline and reassessed after 8 and 24 weeks and compared with the baseline values.Results: After 24 weeks we found significant differences in the thyroid profile of the subjects between two groups. Serum thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH) was found to be 8.70 ± 3.3 in the morning group and 7.0 ± 2.3 in the evening group. TSH levels in the subjects taking the evening dose got closer to the therapeutic target range earlier than the ones taking the drug in the morning.Conclusions: Levothyroxine intake at bedtime can be a good alternative to levothyroxine intake in the morning for the patients taking concomitant medications.