Is the prevalence of thyroiditis increasing? Findings of an audit of thyroid patients

Abstract

Thyroiditis is an inflammatory condition affecting the thyroid gland. It is a common condition for goitrous hypothyroidism. Various prevalence rates for this condition are sited in literature'. The data on thyroiditis in Sri Lanka is spars and the precise incidence in Sri Lanka is not known. The widespread use of Iodized salt is thought to be the course for increasing incidence of thyrioditis. The objectives of the study were to asses the patients with thyroiditis in terms of their; gender, age, and clinical presentations, identify the clinical sub types of thyroiditis in this study group and to find cytological and biochemical parameters of these patients. The data was collected from 43 patients with thyroiditis out of 350 patients with thyroid diseases who attended the surgical out patient clinic of the surgical unit III of Teaching Hospital Karapitiya from July 2004 to Jan. 2007. All these patients were studied in terms of their clinical presentation, demography, clinical type of the goiter, thyroid functional status, cytology of the thyroid and method of treatment and the data was analyzed. The number of patients with thyroiditis was 43 out of 350 patients studied. That is 12% of the study group. The male to female ratio was 42:1. The mean age was 33 yrs while it ranged from 12yrs — 63 yrs. Their presenting complains were goiter — 40 (93%), voice changes — 5 (12 %), pressure symptoms — 4 (9 %), toxic features — 4 (9 %), pain — 3 (7%), cervical lymph nodes — 2 (5 %). Majority of patients presented with a duration of less than 3 months (53%). Fifty two percent of the patients had multi nodular goiters. There was equal number of hypothyroid and euthyroid patients (21 from each). Only one patient was hyper thyroid. The diagnosis was made in most of the patients by FNAC (81%). The rest of the patients had colloid goiters and their thyroid peroxidase antibody level was elevated. The clinical features did not help the diagnosis of thyroiditid. Because of this we would like to recommend directing the investigation to find the possibility of thyroiditis in suspicious patients with thyroid diseases and further studies are required for making diagnosis & management protocols.