thyroid - sonography - color Doppler sonography - fine-needle aspiration - alcohol injection therapy (PEIT)
-
Sonography of the thyroid is a method of high diagnostic certainty provided sufficient experience in the examination and good technical equipment.
-
Subacute thyroiditis de Quervain may be diagnosed conclusively by B-image sonography (hypoechoic lesions) in more than 90 % of cases if clinical symptoms (pain in the neck, laboratory signs of inflammation) are typical.
-
Following iatrogeneous hypothyroidism, chronic lymphocytic thyroiditis is the most common cause of adult hypothyroidism.
-
Clinical findings, laboratory values (thyroid hormones, and facultatively, thyroid antibodies) and color Doppler sonography findings (including PSV) are indicative in the differential diagnosis of disturbances of thyroid function.
-
Scintigraphy is employed for the diagnosis of autonomous nodules > 1 - 1.5 cm.
-
Fine-needle puncture cytology is the most precise and cost-effective procedure for confirming a diagnosis in the case of thyroid nodules suspicious of malignancy.
-
If the indication for the procedure is sound, ethanol instillation therapy (PEIT) of autonomous thyroid adenomas is an effective and, in the hands of an experienced examiner, also low-risk method which may be performed on an ambulatory basis.
