Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

ON SINGLE 'HOT' NODULES OF THE THYROID GLAND

1965; Bioscientifica; Volume: 33; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1677/joe.0.0330537

1479-6805

Raymond Greene, H. E. A. Farran,

Thyroid Disorders and Treatments

Apparently single nodules of the thyroid gland, often described, and often incorrectly, as single 'adenomata', are frequently encountered. Such nodules may be separated into 'hot' nodules, in which the uptake of radioactive iodine is greater than in the surrounding gland, 'cold' ones, in which no uptake is found, and 'neutral ' ones, in which the contours of radioactivity appear to be unaffected by the presence of the nodules. Greene (1957) advanced the view that 'hot' and 'neutral' nodules were usually due to hyperplasia of single thyroid lobules produced by stimulation by thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH) secreted in excess because of a tendency to hypothyroidism. He confirmed the earlier work of Greer & Astwood (1953) and Astwood (1956) that many 'hot' nodules become smaller and may even disappear during treatment with thyroid or thyroxine. This view has been disputed, notably by Sheline & McCormack (1960) and by Fellinger, Hofler, Egert & Vetter (1961),