Tuberculosis of the thyroid gland is a rare condition. A case of tuberculosis of the thyroid gland presenting as a solitary thyroid nodule is presented. Management is operative intervention and anti-tuberculous chemotherapy. The final diagnosis is made after histopathological confirmation of the typical appearances.
1853 thyroid lesions subjected to cytological sampling (either by the fine needle aspiration or fine needle capillary sampling technique) from January 1992 to December 1997 at the University Hospital, Kuala Lumpur, were reviewed. Nodular goitre was the most common thyroid lesion needled (67.35%). Among the neoplastic lesions, follicular neoplasms predominated (64%), followed by papillary carcinoma (29.4%). In 325 cases, partial or total thyroidectomy had been done, providing material for histological review and cyto-histological correlation. Cytological diagnosis was found to have high sensitivity and specificity rates of over 75%. Besides, most non-neoplastic thyroid lesions could be diagnosed on cytology. The scope of cytology in the diagnosis of lymphomas, anaplastic and metastatic tumours rendered diagnostic biopsies (or thyroidectomy) unnecessary in these cases. Being a cost-effective technique and having the capacity to provide exact morphological diagnosis in a large variety of thyroid lesions, cytology is obviously the method of choice in the assessment of thyroid nodules.
A group of patients with solitary nodules of the thyroid were treated at the University of Malaya by surgery under local anaesthesia. This was done in order to expedite exploration of a potentially malignant condition. This group comprised 43 patients, and four cancers were found. The standard technique used was satisfactory from the viewpoint of both the patient and the surgeon. The pattern of this condition in a Malaysian population is documented, the technique used is described, and thyroidectomy under local aneaesthesia is discussed.