Testing for thyroid issue 甲狀腺測試

 
When your dogs are suspect to have thyroid disease, many vets (in Hong Kong) would suggest  your dogs to take a T4 test (which measure total hormone circulating in the blood).  However, diagnosing thyroid issue using T4 test alone can be misleading:

當你的狗是有甲狀腺疾病，許多獸醫（在香港）會建議您採用T4測試 （測量在血液中循環的總激素）.  但只使用T4測試診斷甲狀腺問題可能引會誤導：  

As measuring T4 alone leads to over-diagnoses hypothyroidism when the issue is caused by non-thyroidal illness or certain drugs (steroids, phenobarbital, sulfonamide antibiotics) Inaccurately assesses thyroxine therapy (this therapy can causes the thyroid gland to shrink and produce even less natural hormone than before, if done long enough the gland will never work), and Fails to detect autoimmune thyroiditis.  Do not solely depends on T4 for diagnosing and treating thyroid issue.

單獨測量T4導致過度診斷甲狀腺功能減退的問題但可能只是由非甲狀腺疾病或藥物（類固醇，苯巴比妥類，磺胺類抗生素）引致. 不準確的評估甲狀腺素治療（治療可引起甲狀腺收縮，甚至使甲狀腺產生比以前更少的天然激素，如果做時間太長, 甲狀腺可能永遠都但不到激素） 無法檢測自身免疫性甲狀腺炎 所以不要完全取決於T4去診斷和治療甲狀腺問題.