Mental development in congenital hypothyroidism after neonatal screening

Abstract

In 1961 at the International Congress of Mental Retardation in Vienna the late Henning Andersen, one of the founder members of the European Society for Paediatric Endocrinology (ESPE), emphasised the importance of early treatment of children with congenital hypothyroidism and hoped that methods would soon be available to allow the diagnosis to be made soon after birth.1 At the annual meeting of ESPE in 1974 Pierre Rochiccioli2 was the first in Europe to report such a method, and in 1978 and 1979 reports on national 3-5 and regional neonatal screening programmes6-8 for diagnosing congenital hypothyroidism were presented. These activities prompted the ESPE to start collaborative studies on congenital hypothyroidism.