Objective Subacute thyroiditis (SAT) is a transient inflammatory

MMI 15 mg/d is suitable for mild and moderate GD, whereas MMI 30 mg/d is advisable for severe cases. PTU is not recommended for initial use.

A case of thyrotoxicosis caused by acute suppurative thyroiditis after repeated fine-needle aspiration (FNA) is described. A 39-year-old woman with atopic dermatitis showed rapid enlargement of a left thyroid cyst after a third FNA. She had a high fever, painful swelling of the left thyroid, and elevated thyroid hormone levels. Ultrasonography revealed abscess formation in the left thyroid cyst. The cytologic examination of an FNA specimen showed abundant neutrophils, and culture of the aspirate yielded Staphylococcus aureus. Because antibiotic treatment for 1 month failed to improve the inflammatory findings, the patient subsequently underwent left thyroid lobectomy, which resulted in the normalization of thyroid function and the resolution of inflammation. Thyroid infection had possibly been induced by needle-track seeding, because atopic skin favors colonization by S. aureus because of local immunologic deficiency. FNA is a useful and safe technique for aspirating fluid from thyroid cysts, but special care is required in patients with atopic dermatatis to avoid bacterial infection.

US screening for goiters contributes markedly to diagnosis of lymphoma at an early phase, facilitating early initiation of therapy.

TBF was quantitatively measured by power Doppler ultrasonography and was more effective than TBII for differentiation between destruction-induced thyrotoxicosis (painless or subacute thyroiditis) and Graves' thyrotoxicosis. TBF values of less than 4% in untreated thyrotoxic patients are laboratory signals of destruction-induced thyrotoxicosis and if these are determined, the radioactive iodine uptake test can be omitted for differential diagnosis of these two types of thyrotoxicosis.

Background: Some investigators reported that among athyreotic patients on levothyroxine (LT4) monotherapy following total thyroidectomy, the patients with normal serum thyrotropin (TSH) levels had mildly low serum free triiodothyronine (fT3) levels, whereas the patients with mildly suppressed serum TSH levels had normal serum fT3 levels, and the patients with strongly suppressed serum TSH had elevated serum fT3 levels. The objective of the present study was to clarify which of these three patient groups is closer to their preoperative euthyroid condition.Methods: A total of 133 consecutive euthyroid patients with papillary thyroid carcinoma who underwent a total thyroidectomy were prospectively studied. The patients' serum levels of lipoproteins, sex hormone-binding globulin, and bone metabolic markers measured preoperatively were compared with the levels measured at postoperative LT4 therapy 12 months after the thyroidectomy.Results: The postoperative serum sex hormone-binding globulin (p < 0.001) and bone alkaline phosphatase (p < 0.01) levels were significantly increased in the patients with strongly suppressed TSH levels (≤0.03 μIU/mL). The postoperative serum low-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels were significantly increased (p < 0.05), and the serum tartrate-resistant acid phosphatase-5b levels were significantly decreased (p < 0.05) in the patients with normal TSH (0.3 < TSH ≤5 μIU/mL). In the patients with mildly suppressed TSH (0.03 < TSH ≤0.3 μIU/mL) and fT3 levels equivalent to their preoperative levels, all metabolic markers remained equivalent to their preoperative levels.Conclusions: The serum biochemical markers of thyroid function in patients on LT4 following total thyroidectomy suggest that the patients with mildly suppressed TSH levels were closest to euthyroid, whereas those with normal TSH levels were mildly hypothyroid and those with strongly suppressed TSH levels were mildly hyperthyroid. These data may provide novel information on the management of patients following total thyroidectomy for thyroid cancer or benign thyroid disease.

A greater percentage of thyroid cancers can be detected by ultrasound-guided fine-needle aspiration biopsy (UG-FNAB) than by ordinary FNAB. A group of 678 patients were selected sequentially as having been diagnosed with benign nodules by the conventional FNAB method. We reexamined these patients by UG-FNAB and investigated the types of thyroid cancer that were missed by the conventional FNAB. Of the 678 patients diagnosed with benign nodules (using conventional FNAB), 571 (84.2%) demonstrated the same diagnosis when UG-FNAB was used. The remaining 107 patients (15.8%) studied were suspected of having a malignancy after UG-FNAB had been performed. Surgical specimen histology proved thyroid cancer in 99 of the 107 patients: 93 had papillary carcinoma, 4 had follicular carcinoma, 1 had medullary carcinoma and 1 had anaplastic carcinoma. Two drawbacks were noted when conventional FNAB was used: (1) cancer lesions difficult to palpate (n = 55) (e.g., small cancers with or without benign lesions or cancers associated with Hashimoto's thyroiditis or Graves' disease); and (2) palpable cancers with insufficient cell material for analysis (n = 44) (e.g., cystic carcinoma and cancers with calcified lesions. UG-FNAB is a powerful technique for detecting microcancers, cystic carcinomas, cancers associated with benign nodules, Hashimoto's thyroiditis, or coarse calcifications.

The frequently found mutations, C1058R and C1977S, were caused by founder effects. This result suggests that Tg mutations may provide a genetic basis for the cause of familial euthyroid goiter.