Thyroid tuberculosis

ABSTRACT

The incidence of tuberculosis is high and extrapulmonary tuberculosis is seen more frequently, the thyroid tuberculosis is rare. Thyroid tuberculosis is presented as thyroid nodule, thyroiditis or abscess formation. This condition should therefore be recognized whenever goiter is being treated, because it has an entirely different treatment. The aim of this report is to present thyroid tuberculosis in order to gain a better understanding of its clinical characteristic, diagnosis and treatment we present 9 cases of thyroid tuberculosis since 1995-2006 from north of Iran. They comprised 5 patients with thyroiditis, 2 cases with abscess formation and 2 with thyroid nodules. All patients were diagnosed using Fine Needle Aspiration [FNA] and treated by repeated surgery and anti-tuberculosis drugs. It is concluded that tuberculosis of thyroid should be kept in mind while treating diseases of the thyroid such as thyroid nodule, thyroiditis, thyrotoxicosis especially in communities with high prevalence of tuberculosis. The diagnosis of thyroid tuberculosis is facilitated by FNA and its treatment is achieved by simple surgery as well as anti-tuberculosis therapy