Spectrum of goitrous lesions in patients at a tertiary care center of Sikkim

Abstract

Background: Sikkim is declared as a goitre endemic state with an estimated prevalence of 54%. The spectrums of diseases include simple goitre, thyroiditis, adenoma, carcinoma, multinodular goitre and Graves′ disease. The present study aims to determine the pattern of thyroid swelling in a hospital setup at Sikkim. Materials and Methods: This study is a retrospective analysis of records of all patients presenting with thyroid swelling in a tertiary care hospital at Gangtok, Sikkim during the period of 4 years between 1 st January 2008 and 31 st December 2011. Patients were diagnosed by clinical examination, FNAC, USG, CT scan and hormone estimation. Histopatholgical confirmation was done in surgical cases. Clinic opathological and demographic data of 166 such patients were obtained and analyzed for the present study. Results: The most common goitrous disease was simple goitre (69.27%) followed by thyroiditis (10.24%), toxic goitre (7.83%) and malignancy (12.65%). Papillary variant was the commonest carcinoma. Overall female:male ratio was 4.9:1. The prevalence goitrous lesion was highest in the middle age group between 30-39 years, while the extremes of age (below 10 years and above 70 years) were rarely involved. Conclusions: The prevalence of goitre in Sikkim is still very high despite iodisation programs by the Government. There is urgent need for more data on autoimmunity and goitrogens status to explain the high prevalence of goitre in this population.

Keywords

• Age sex distribution
• cancer
• Goitre
• Sikkim
• thyroiditis