Thyroid sonography in autoimmune thyroiditis. A prospective study on 123 patients

Abstract

Thyroid sonography was used to assess 2322 patients attending our clinic over a 3-year period. Sonography, in combination with clinical and laboratory findings, enabled us to detect autoimmune thyroiditis in 123 patients, 67 of whom could be classified as euthyroid, 17 as latent hypothyroid, and 39 as overtly hypothyroid. Consequently without the use of sonography (or thyroid antibody measurements) it would not have been possible to make a diagnosis in over half of our patients with autoimmune thyroiditis. Sonography was also of considerable value in establishing the absence of autoimmune thyroiditis as out of the 2322 patients we examined, autoimmune thyroiditis could be excluded on the basis of sonography alone (absence of diffuse hypoechoicity) in 1962 (84%). Thyroid volume ranged from < 5 to 112 ml with the majority of patients having a volume of 21-30 ml and the overtly hypothyroid group showing a shift to smaller volumes. The data suggested that thyroid volume changes over the range of the disease from euthyroid to overtly hypothyroid.

Sonographic Differentiation of Asymptomatic Diffuse Thyroid Disease from Normal Thyroid: A Prospective Study

“…[1][2][3][4][5][6][7] The present study attempted to determine the diagnostic efficacy of the use of real-time sonography for asymptomatic DTD. The sonographic diagnoses of the thyroid parenchyma were classified into 4 categories.…”

“…Nonetheless, the use of thyroid sonography in the evaluation of DTD has been restricted to the following: the screening of nodular thyroid disease for DTD, the differentiation or characterization of DTD, or the detection of a diffuse infiltrating tumor. [1][2][3][4][5][6][7] For the sonographic evaluation of DTD, several helpful sonographic features have been used, including decreased or increased parenchymal echogenicity, a coarse echotexture, decreased or increased vascularity, a decreased or increased AP diameter of the gland, the presence of marginal nodularity, and the presence of scattered microcalcifications. [1][2][3][4][5][6][7] Ralls et al 1 reported the "thyroid inferno" as a useful sonographic feature on color Doppler sonography for the identification of Graves disease.…”

“…Nordmeyer et al 3 suggested that thyroid sonography was of considerable value in establishing the absence of autoimmune thyroiditis because autoimmune thyroiditis could be excluded in 84% of cases on the basis of the use of a prospective sonographic examination alone. To the best of our knowledge, however, a prospective sonographic study for the identification of asymptomatic DTD with the use of a real-time thyroid sonography has not been reported.…”

Thyroid function, morphology and autoimmunity in young patients with insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus

“…There is a need for alternative ways to confirm the diagnosis of autoimmune thyroid disease. During the last decade thyroid ultrasonography (US) has been increasingly accepted as an easy, inexpensive and non-invasive method for the investigation of thyroid volume (11)(12)(13), morphology and echogenicity (14)(15)(16)(17). However, in childhood diabetes little is known of thyroid morphology determined by US (5,18).…”

Função tireoidiana subclínica e aspectos ultra-sonográficos em mulheres submetidas a rastreamento de função tireoideana em local de trabalho

“…Grande parte dos casos persistentes de doença subclínica da tireóide persistente evolui para doença clínica 2 . Estudos recentes indicam que a ultra-sonografia da tireóide e a dosagem de anti-TPO são os melhores métodos para identificar indivíduos com chances de desenvolver doença clínica da tireóide 43,[45][46][47] . Os resultados deste estudo são consistentes com os dados desses outros autores [49][50][51][52] , que mostraram a importância das alterações ultra-sonográficas no diagnóstico da doença tireoidiana autoimune.…”