Goitre

A woman with goitre.

A goitre or goiter (Latin: struma), also called a bronchocele, is a swelling in the neck (just below Adam's apple or larynx) due to an enlarged thyroid gland .The thyroid gland's enlargement usually occurs due to deficiency of iodine.

Thyroid gland

Classification

They are classified in different ways:

• A "diffuse goitre" is a goitre that has spread through all of the thyroid (and can be a "simple goitre", or a "multinodular goitre").
• "Toxic goitre" refers to goitre with hyperthyroidism. These most commonly due to Graves disease, but can be caused by inflammation or a multinodular goitre.
• "Non toxic goitre" (associated with normal or low thyroid levels) refers to all other types (such as that caused by lithium or certain other autoimmune diseases).

Causes

Other causes are:

• Thyroid cancer
• Iodine deficiency
• Hashimoto's thyroiditis (E06.3)
• Graves-Basedow disease (E05.0)
• inborn errors of thyroid hormone synthesis, causing congenital hypothyroidism (E03.0)
• Thyroiditis (acute, chronic) (E06)
• Side-effects of pharmacological therapy (E03.2)

New research indicates that there may be a tendency to inherit an increased vulnerability to goitre.

Famous goitre sufferers

• President George H. W. Bush and his wife Barbara Bush both were diagnosed with Graves disease and enlarged thyroid glands, within 2 years of each other. In the president's case, the disease caused hyperthyroidism and cardiac dysrhythmia
• Kim Il-sung

Other websites

• National Health Services, UK
• Network for Sustained Elimination of Iodine Deficiency
• Network for Sustained Elimination of Iodine Deficiency - alternate site at Emory University's School of Public Health