Thyroid lesions in patients with chronic renal failure undergoing regular hemodialysis: Assessment with ultrasonography

Abstract

It was aimed to determine the incidence of the thyroid lesions in hemodialysis patients. Thyroid glands of 25 hemodialysis patients (17 men, 8 women and aged 18-70) were examined with ultrasound utilizing a 7.5 MHz linear probe. Blood samples for TSH, fT3 and fT4 were obtained from the uremic patients just before the ultrasound examination. Thyroid glands of 10 (40%) uremic patients were normal ultrasonographically. Among 15 patients with thyroid abnormalities, 6 (24 %) had diffuse hyperplasia and 9 (36%) had nodular disesase. Whi¬le the incidence of thyroid nodule was 36% in uremic patients, it was 9% in the control group. Among these two groups, the difference of nodule incidences was significant (p<0.01). There were no differences in age, sex, duration of hemodialysis and thyroid function between the patients with thyroid nodules and those without no¬dules. It is concluded that the incidence of thyroid nodule in uremic patients are higher than the normal sub¬jects.