Goitre

One child who suffers with a goitre — a swelling of the thyroid gland — had vital treatment suspended for half a year because of difficulties accessing the British medical system.

She'd been diagnosed, at the age of 13, with a goitre — a swelling at the front of her neck caused by a swollen thyroid gland.

At the 19th annual camp held early this month, 16 people from the tribe — 13 women and three men — underwent goitre surgeries.

Most people in this remote village of Langtang had goitre then caused by iodine deficiency.

Also seen, if the patient is hyperthyroid, are more general manifestations, which are due to hyperthyroidism itself and which may be seen in any conditions that cause hyperthyroidism (such as toxic multinodular goitre or even thyroid poisoning).

Around this time Pliny referred to epidemics of goitre in the Alps and also mentioned the use of burnt seaweed in their treatment, in the same way as the Chinese had done 1600 years earlier.

Contributions to Thyroid surgery Thyroid surgery, which was mostly performed as treatment of goitre with a complete thyroidectomy when possible, was considered a risky procedure when Kocher started his work.

Early reports, not widely circulated, of cases of goitre with exophthalmos were published by the Italians Giuseppe Flajina Flajani, G. Sopra un tumor freddo nell'anterior parte del collo broncocele.

If goitre is caused by iodine deficiency, small doses of iodide in the form of Lugol's Iodine or KI solution are given.

Page 134. One Chinese book, The Pharmacopoeia of the Heavenly Husbandman, asserted that iodine-rich sargassum was used to treat goitre patients by the 1st century BC, but this book was written much later.

The number of severely affected persons was always a minority, and most persons were only affected to the extent of having a goitre and some degree of reduced cognition and growth.