Expected prevalence of sheehan's syndrome in Mexico by extrapolation of screenings in other countries

Abstract

Background: Sheehan's syndrome (SS) occurs as result of ischemic pituitary necrosis due to postpartum hemorrhage; its prevalence in Mexico is unknown. Objective: To estimate the approximate number of Mexican women that could have SS. Methods: A search was performed in PubMed and Web of Science using the mesh terms: "postpartum hemorrhage" OR "Hypopituitarism". Besides these same keywords, in Google Scholar the search was expanded using the next terms: "Sheehan's syndrome prevalence". It was calculated the estimated cases of obstetric hemorrhage and the SS incidence in México based on casuistries from three countries. Results: Extrapolating data from India, the total cases of SS in Mexico in the last five years could be as high as 322761 or about 2000 if taking Iceland’s statistics. As the measure of all the adenohypophyseal hormones is of 56 dollars in Mexican public institutions, the option to make and early SS diagnosis should be to quantify only TSH that has a cost of 13.5 dollars. Conclusions: The prevalence of SS in Mexico can have a 161-fold difference between the minimum and maximum values calculated by extrapolating information from other countries, so it is important to consider screening alternatives such as TSH measurement for its detection.