1. [The incidentaloma of the thyroid. Over- or underuse of diagnostic procedure for an epidemiologic finding?]
- Author
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Matthias Schmidt, Markus Dietlein, Harald Schicha, and Carsten Kobe
- Subjects
Gynecology ,Adult ,medicine.medical_specialty ,business.industry ,Incidentaloma ,Thyroid ,Calcinosis ,Reproducibility of Results ,General Medicine ,medicine.disease ,medicine.anatomical_structure ,Endocrinology ,Risk Factors ,Internal medicine ,Germany ,medicine ,Humans ,Radiology, Nuclear Medicine and imaging ,Thyroid Neoplasms ,business ,Radionuclide Imaging ,Thyroid cancer - Abstract
Summary:The incidentally detected thyroid nodule using sonography is described as incidentaloma; the most nodules have a diameter up to 1.5 cm. Sonography will detect thyroid nodules in more than 20% of the population in Germany. Epidemiological studies investigating the prevalence of malignancy in such incidentalomas are missing. The incidence of differentiated thyroid cancer is about 3 per 100,000 people and year. However, several monocentric studies have shown a prevalence of malignancy of up to 10% of the thyroid nodules in selected patients’ group. The histology did not found microcarcinomas only, but also small cancer with infiltration of the thyroid capsule, lymph node metastasis or multifocal spread. The studies were not designed for outcome measurement after early and incidental detection of small thyroid cancers. Hypoechogenity, ill defined borders, central hypervascularization or microcalcifications were used as combined criteria for risk stratification. The second method for risk stratification is scintigraphy and further tests are warranted for hypofunctioning nodule ≥1 cm. Additionally, the family history, patient’s age
- Published
- 2006