Volume : 5, Issue : 2, February - 2016

Profile of Auto-Immune Thyroiditis in Surgical Outpatients

Bhavinder Arora

Abstract :

<p> Background: Auto immune thyroiditis or Hashimoto is a common inflammatory disease of the thyroid gland. Hashimoto described it as lymphoid inflammation of thyroid gland in adult women. This is a common cause of hypothyroidism. Auto immune thyroiditis commonly presents as solitary thyroid nodule in surgical outdoor patients. Material and Methods: The present study was carried out in surgical outdoor patients who presented with thyroid swelling. A total number of 100 patients with thyroid swelling were studied. In all the patients’ thyroid function tests, ultrasonography of neck, fine needle aspiration cytology was done as outdoor investigations. Those patients in who fine needle aspiration cytology reported as auto-immune thyroiditis; anti-thyroid peroxidase (anti-TPO) was measured. Results: In this study of one hundred patients, 95 patients were females and 5 patients were males. Ultrasonography, thyroid function tests and fine needle aspiration cytology were done in all the patients. Fine needle aspiration cytology reported auto-immune thyroiditis in 30 patients. Out of these 30 patients, 29 were males and only 1 male patient. In these 30 cases in whom fine needle aspiration cytology reported autoimmune thyroiditis the anti- TPO was done. Only three cases reported low levels of anti-TPO while rest of twenty seven cases reported high levels. Conclusion This study concludes that fine needle aspiration cytology is a very reliable tool for the diagnosis of the thyroid nodule and the incidence of auto-immune thyroiditis is high in surgical outdoor patients.</p>