Thyroid Nodules Following Neck Irradiation

  • Ernest L. Mazzaferri
Chapter
Part of the Contemporary Internal Medicine book series (COIM, volume 2)

Abstract

A 45-year-old married woman, mother of two children, was seen at The Ohio State University for evaluation of a thyroid nodule. One year before being seen in our clinic the patient found a painless lump in her neck for which she consulted her family physician. He found this to be a thyroid lesion, which, by ultrasonography, was a solid, well-circumscribed, single nodule in the right thyroid lobe. Thyroidal 123I uptake was 20 percent at 24 hours. Thyroid scintigraphy showed almost all of the radionuclide to be concentrated in the area of the palpable nodule, while the surrounding tissue showed no 123I uptake. Her serum free thyroxine index (FT4I) was 9.0 (normal 4.0 to 11.5), which matched the initial clinical impression that she was euthyroid. Over the next year, although no therapy was given, she was seen regularly by her family physician who, by ultrasonography, documented gradual enlargement of the nodule from 3 to 5 cm in diameter. As the nodule enlarged, she began having night sweats and started experiencing more anxiety and nervousness than was customary for her. However, her weight remained steady, and she noticed no other symptoms of thyrotoxicosis such as fatigue, palpitations, or dyspnea. As a teenager she had been given several external x-ray treatments for acne but the physician’s records of this were no longer available. She had no other pertinent past medical history and was taking no medication. There was no family history of thyroid cancer or endocrine disease.

Keywords

Thyroid Cancer Thyroid Carcinoma Papillary Thyroid Carcinoma Thyroid Nodule Thyroid Scintigraphy 
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
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Copyright information

© Plenum Publishing Corporation 1989

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  • Ernest L. Mazzaferri

There are no affiliations available

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