Aims and objectives
Thyroid nodules are very common; they are found in 4%-8% of adults by means of palpation,
in 10%- 41% by means of ultrasound and in 50% by means of pathologic examination at autopsy.
Unfortunately,
the majority of them are asymptomatic and most nodules detected by ultrasound are non-palpable (ultrasound can detect thyroid cysts as small as 2 mm and solid nodules as small as 3 mm),
hence came the need for their characterization to exclude the presence of malignancy.
[1-4]
Since ultrasound depicts the thyroid...
Methods and materials
Patient population:
A prospective study included 184 nodules detected in 70 patients (M/F 18/52) with ages ranged from 25 to 73 years (mean,
45.3 years).
They were referred from the general surgery,
otolaryngeology,
oncology and pathology departments to our radiology department for thyroid ultrasound and ultrasound guided fine needle aspiration (FNA) biopsy
Data acquisition:
- All patients underwent ultrasound examination of the neck and thyroid gland using the linear transducer with frequencies of 8-10 MHz of a GE LOGIQ P3 (GeneralElectric,
Milwaukee,
WI,
USA).
Patients...
Results
- Ultrasound guided fine needle aspiration was successfully performed in 178 nodules revealing 144 nodules to benign,
23 malignant nodules and 11 nodules of indeterminate features.
All the results were confirmed by post-operative histo-pathological correlation.
- The demographic analysis of the studied patients revealed that most thyroid nodules are present in the ages ranged from > 40- 50 years (n = 22 representing 31.4% of the 70 patients included in our study),
however most of the detected nodules were benign.
Malignancy was higher in patients...
Conclusion
Thyroid nodules are a common clinical problem and because the risk for malignancy in these thyroid nodules is low,
the issue of how best to manage the current epidemic of thyroid nodules in an increasingly cost-constrained environment is a critical one.
Thyroid ultrasound has been widely used to differentiate benign from malignant nodules and to guide fine-needle aspiration biopsy for nodules suspected of being malignant.
Although there is some overlap between the ultrasound appearance of benign nodules and that of malignant nodules,
certain features are...
References
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Bonnema SJ and Bennedbaek FN. Management of simple nodular goiter: current status and future perspectives.
EndocrRev 2003; 24:102–32.
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4.Castro MR,
Gharib H.
Thyroid nodules and cancer.
When to wait and watch when to refer.
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5. Blum...