Clinical Characteristics and Incidence of Thyroid Nodule in the Male Population for Health Check-up

Yeon Jin Jeon; Young Teag Koh; Seung Jong Oh; Min Young Koo

doi:10.16956/kjes.2015.15.4.93

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Jeon, Koh, Oh, and Koo: Clinical Characteristics and Incidence of Thyroid Nodule in the Male Population for Health Check-up

Original Article

Korean Journal of Endocrine Surgery 2015; 15(4): 93-98.

Published online: 17 December 2015

DOI: https://doi.org/10.16956/kjes.2015.15.4.93

Clinical Characteristics and Incidence of Thyroid Nodule in the Male Population for Health Check-up

Yeon Jin Jeon, Young Teag Koh, Seung Jong Oh, Min Young Koo

Department of Surgery, National Police Hoispital, Seoul, Korea.

Correspondence: Min Young Koo. Department of Surgery, National Police Hoispital, 123 Songi-ro, Songpa-gu, Seoul, 05715, Korea. Tel: +82-2-3400-1232, Fax: +82-2-3400-1233, jskim0126@skku.edu

Received 29 October 2015 Revised 20 November 2015 Accepted 30 November 2015

(open-access):

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

Purpose

Thyroid nodules are a common disease in clinical practice. The prevalence of thyroid nodules has recently increased according to the development of thyroid ultrasonography. Thyroid nodules are more commonly found in women, but the potential for malignant nodules is much higher in men. The purpose of this study was to assess clinical characteristics and the incidence of thyroid nodules and malignancy in the adult male population.

Methods

Clinical characteristics and incidence of thyroid nodules was examined by screening ultrasonography targeting 6,968 male patients over the age of 40 who visited the National Police Hospital from January 2012 and April 2015.

Results

Among 6,968 male patients, 2,481 (35.6%) showed abnormal findings on ultrasonography. Of the 2,481 patients, 2,370 patients (34.01%) had a thyroid nodule and 111 patients (4.47%) had thyroiditis without a thyroid nodule, previous thyroidectomy, lymphadenopathy, esophageal diverticulum, parathyroid cyst, and benign calcification. Of the 2,481 patients, 958 patients (38.6%) had abnormal TFT and 204 patients (8.22%) had thyroiditis with or without a thyroid nodule. Thyroid nodules were benign in 1993 (80.33%) cases, indeterminate in 313 (12.61%) cases, and suspicious in 64 (2.56%) cases. Among the 2,481 subjects, thyroid cancer was detected in 37 subjects (1.49%).

Conclusion

The incidence of thyroid nodules has recently increased according to the development of thyroid ultrasonography.

Keywords: Thyroid nodule, Thyroid cancer, Ultrasonography, Male

Figures and Tables

Fig. 1

Percentage of patients with ultrasonographically detected abnormal findings by age distribution.

Fig. 2

Ultrasound finding of benign presentation of thyroid nodule found papillary carcinoma at biopsy. (A) Transverse sonogram. (B) Longitudinal sonogram.

Fig. 3

Ultrasound finding of benign cystic nodule with lateral lymph node metastasis. (A) Transverse sonogram of thyroid nodule. (B) Tranverse sonogram of lateral lymph node. (C) Longitudinal sonogram of lateral lymph node.

Table 1

Status of blood thyroid function test in patients with positive ultrasound results

T4 = thyroxine; TSH = thyroid stimulating hormone; TFT = includes patients with at least one of abnormal T4 or TSH.

Table 2

Characteristic of thyroid nodules detected in ultrasound

cm = centimeter; ETC = patients with ultrasound abnormality without nodule including thyroiditis, previous thyroidectomy, lymphadenopathy, esophageal diverticulum, parathyroid cyst and benign calcification; Total = number of patient with positive ultrasound results; Total = the percentage of patients with positive ultrasound results by age distribution of total patients.

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