A small taste of what will be a bigger post one day…

As I understand, the world record for the weight of a thyroid is 13Kg. This example maybe slightly more than a Kg which still weighs much more than the normal about 20Gm.

I previously wrote about an interesting case in A sad but interesting case. Being very mountainous there was a high incidence of goitre which unlike the reported PNG experience did not respond to simpler medical regimes and often required surgery. We used to list the common indications to consider surgery as

1.  difficulty in breathing or swallowing
2. enlargement into the chest
3. Proven or Suspected malignancy
4. controlled hyperthyroidism (over action)
5. cosmetic.

The marks on the neck are from the application of national herbal medicine. It didn’t seem to help.

After 300 such procedures I wrote a paper. There was a 15% incidence of small malignancies in the very large glands. But we’ll leave more for another day!

This small thyroid in a young teenage boy proved to be malignant. The post grad student in the picture has become a famous surgeon.

Dominic Cartier.