CLINTCAL EXPERIENCE WITH THE BLOOD PROTEIN-BOUND IODINE DETERMINATION AS A ROUTINE PROCEDURE*†

Abstract

THIS paper presents some of the ten-year experience of the Los Angeles County Hospital with blood iodine determinations, which are done as a routine procedure in the general chemistry laboratory of the hospital and in the private laboratory of one of the authors (A.L.C.). It is not the purpose of this discussion to attempt to establish a set of precise values for protein-bound iodine in various accurately defined disease states, but rather to report the values that have been obtained in “routine” hospital practice in these states. The material has been drawn from special studies on patients seen in the thyroid clinic and from the clinical records of the Los Angeles County Hospital, from the present back to 1938. Experience in therapeutic studies with this procedure for determining blood protein-bound iodine (PBI) during a two-year study in which hundreds of tests were made in the serial observation of hyperthyroidism treated with antithyroid drugs indicated its reliability and usefulness in measuring thyroid activity as it rose and fell under treatment (1–3). In general, it is the opinion of our staff that the procedure may be maintained on an economical basis and that the results are precise enough to be of clinical significance and of great practical value.