Goitre

A goitre (British English) or goiter (American English) (from the Latin gutteria, struma) is a swelling of the neck or larynx resulting from enlargement of the thyroid gland (thyromegaly), associated with a thyroid gland that is not functioning properly.

Worldwide, over 90% cases of goitre are caused by iodine deficiency.^[1]

Signs and symptoms

Goiter, associated with hypothyroidism or hyperthyroidism, may be present with symptoms of the underlying disorder. For hyperthyroidism, the most common symptoms are associated with adrenergic stimulation: tachycardia, palpitations, nervousness, tremor, increased blood pressure and heat intolerance. Clinical manifestations are often related to hypermetabolism, (increased metabolism), excessive thyroid hormone, an increase in oxygen consumption, metabolic changes in protein metabolism, immunologic stimulation of diffuse goitre, and ocular changes (exophthalmos).^[2] Hypothyroid individuals may have weight gain despite poor appetite, cold intolerance, constipation and lethargy. However, these symptoms are often non-specific and make diagnosis difficult.

Morphology

Regarding morphology, goitres may be classified either as the growth pattern or as the size of the growth :

Growth pattern

• Uninodular goitre: can be either inactive or a toxic nodule
• Multinodular goitre: can likewise be inactive or toxic, the latter called toxic multinodular goitre
• Diffuse goitre: the whole thyroid appearing to be enlarged.

Size

• Class I (palpation goitre): in normal posture of the head, it cannot be seen; it is only found by palpation.
• Class II: the goitre is palpable and can be easily seen.
• Class III: the goitre is very large and is retrosternal; pressure results in compression marks.

• 

  Goitre (Class II)

• 

  Goitre with autonomous adenoma

• 

  Goitre Class III

Causes

Worldwide, the most common cause for goitre is iodine deficiency, usually seen in countries that do not use iodized salt. Selenium deficiency is also considered a contributing factor. In countries that use iodized salt, Hashimoto's thyroiditis is the most common cause.^[3] Goitre can also result from cyanide poisoning; this is particularly common in tropical countries where people eat the cyanide-rich cassava root as the staple food.^[4]

• Sarcoidosis
• Amyloidosis
• Hydatidiform mole
• Cysts
• Acromegaly
• Pendred syndrome

Treatment

Goitre is treated according to the cause. If the thyroid gland is producing too much T3 and T4, radioactive iodine is given to the patient to shrink the gland. If goitre is caused by iodine deficiency, small doses of iodide in the form of Lugol's Iodine or KI solution are given. If the goitre is associated with an underactive thyroid, thyroid supplements are used as treatment. In extreme cases, a partial or complete thyroidectomy is required.^[9]

Epidemiology

Disability-adjusted life year for iodine deficiency per 100,000 inhabitants in 2002.^[10]

  no data

  fewer than 50

  50–100

  100–150

  150–200

  200–250

  250–300

  300–350

  350–400

  400–450

  450–500

  500–800

  more than 800

Goitre is more common among women, but this includes the many types of goitre caused by autoimmune problems, and not only those caused by simple lack of iodine.

History

Goitre and cretinism in Styria, copper engraving, 1815

Women in Miesbacher Tracht, including a goitre choker

Chinese physicians of the Tang Dynasty (618–907) were the first to successfully treat patients with goitre by using the iodine-rich thyroid gland of animals such as sheep and pigs—in raw, pill, or powdered form.^[11] This was outlined in Zhen Quan's (d. 643 AD) book, as well as several others.^[12] 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.^[13]

In the 12th century, Zayn al-Din al-Jurjani, a Persian physician, provided the first description of Graves' disease after noting the association of goitre and a displacement of the eye known as exophthalmos in his Thesaurus of the Shah of Khwarazm, the major medical dictionary of its time.^[14][15] Al-Jurjani also established an association between goitre and palpitation.^[16] The disease was later named after Irish doctor Robert James Graves, who described a case of goitre with exophthalmos in 1835. The German Karl Adolph von Basedow also independently reported the same constellation of symptoms in 1840, while earlier reports of the disease were also published by the Italians Giuseppe Flajani and Antonio Giuseppe Testa, in 1802 and 1810 respectively,^[17] and by the English physician Caleb Hillier Parry (a friend of Edward Jenner) in the late 18th century.^[18]

Paracelsus (1493–1541) was the first person to propose a relationship between goitre and minerals (particularly lead) in drinking water.^[19] Iodine was later discovered by Bernard Courtois in 1811 from seaweed ash.

Goitre was previously common in many areas that were deficient in iodine in the soil. For example, in the English Midlands, the condition was known as Derbyshire Neck. In the United States, goitre was found in the Great Lakes, Midwest, and Intermountain regions. The condition now is practically absent in affluent nations, where table salt is supplemented with iodine. However, it is still prevalent in India, China,^[20] Central Asia, and Central Africa.

Goitre had been prevalent in the alpine countries for a long time. Switzerland reduced the condition by introducing iodised salt in 1922. The Bavarian tracht in the Miesbach and Salzburg regions, which appeared in the 19th century, includes a choker, dubbed Kropfband (struma band) which was used to hide either the goitre or the remnants of goitre surgery.^[21]

Society and culture

In the 1920s wearing bottles of iodine around the neck was believed to prevent goitre.^[22]

Notable cases

• Former US President George H. W. Bush and his wife Barbara Bush were both diagnosed with Graves' disease and goitres, within two years of each other. The disease caused hyperthyroidism and cardiac dysrhythmia.^[23][24] Scientists said that the odds of both George and Barbara Bush having Graves' disease might be 1 in 100,000 or as low as 1 in 3,000,000.^[25]
• Andrea True (according to an interview on VH1).^[26]

Heraldry

The coat of arms and crest of Die Kröpfner, of Tyrol showed a man "afflicted with a large goitre", an apparent pun on the German for the word ("Kropf").^[27]

See also

• David Marine conducted substantial research on the treatment of goitre with iodine.
• Endemic goitre
• Struma ovarii—a kind of teratoma

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Goiters.

• National Health Service, UK
• Iodine Global Network
• A case and photograph of a huge goitre from Photobucket.com and Doctorkhodadoust.net