[Epidemiology of hypothyroidism due to congenital malformation of the gland: athyreosis or ectopic thyroid (author's transl)].

The neonatal characteristics of 322 cases of hypothyroidism due to congenital malformation of the gland --athyreosis or ectopic thyroid--were compared with a national sample of births (N = 11,373), and a sample of births in public hospitals in Paris (N = 12, 895), in order to see if genetic factors were involved in the etiology of the disease. The hypothesis of multifactorial inheritance has been especially studied. Factors which appeared compatible with a multifactorial etiology were: marked excess of females (74%); higher frequency of twins (3.4%), of maternal familial thyropathy (9.2% among the mothers), of familial cases of thyroid malformations (11 cases); higher frequency of associated malformations of multifactorial origin (5.4%). But this type of malformation was not more frequent among siblings and relatives of the studied cases; it is thus not possible to accept the hypothesis of multifactorial inheritance without reservation.