[The role of prevention in decreasing endocrine pathology].

Time course of changes in the incidence of thyroid diseases and their association with other noncontagious chronic diseases (NCCD) have been evaluated among therapeutic patients hospitalized at Research Center for Clinical and Experimental Medicine of Siberian Division of Russian Academy of Medical Sciences in 1983-1995. The incidence of thyroid diseases was low in 1983, when prevention of iodine-deficiency diseases was a state program. In 1989, when iodine deficiency prevention was reduced, the incidence of cases with enlarged gland and its dysfunction has drastically increased. In 1995, when the system of population protection from endemic goiter virtually ceased to function, the incidence of thyroid diseases increased, including such serious diseases as diffuse toxic goiter, nodular goiter, primary hypothyrosis, and autoimmune thyroiditis; the number of patients in whom thyroid diseases were concomitant with other NCCD increased. These results demonstrate the principal significance of the preventive trend in public health.