ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Ultrasound of the thyroid gland in the newborn: normative data

R J Perry¹, A S Hollman², A M Wood³ and M D C Donaldson¹

¹ Department of Child Health, Royal Hospital for Sick Children, Yorkhill, Glasgow, Scotland, United Kingdom
² Department of Radiology, Royal Hospital for Sick Children
³ Department of Research and Development, Royal Hospital for Sick Children

Correspondence to:
Correspondence to:
Dr Perry, Department of Child Health, Royal Hospital for Sick Children, Yorkhill, Glasgow G3 8SJ, Scotland, UK;
rebjperry{at}hotmail.com

Objective: To establish reference ranges for thyroid length, breadth, depth, and volume in healthy term Scottish infants.

Design: Prospective observational study of 100 (49 male) neonates. Length, breadth, and depth were measured, and the volume of each lobe was calculated using the formula for a prolate ellipsoid (volume = length x breadth x depth x /6).

Results: All measurements showed gaussian distribution, with no significant differences between the right and the left lobes. Values (mean (SD) range) were: length (cm), 1.94 (0.24) 0.9–2.5; breadth (cm), 0.88 (0.16) 0.5–1.4; depth (cm), 0.96 (0.17) 0.6–2.0; volume (ml), 0.81 (0.24) 0.3–1.7; combined volume (ml), 1.62 (0.41) 0.7–3.3. Although there was no difference in mean volume between right and left lobes, there was considerable variation (-0.8 to + 0.7 ml) between the two lobes in individual babies.

Conclusions: Both lobes should be measured to give a combined volume. Our findings provide a reference against which thyroid hypoplasia or goitre can be evaluated.

Keywords: thyroid volume; ultrasonography

CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    What's this?

Relevant Article

Fantoms

Ben Stenson
Arch. Dis. Child. Fetal Neonatal Ed. 2002 87: F235. [Extract] [Full Text] [PDF]

This article has been cited by other articles:

• Kurtoglu, S, Ozturk, M A, Koklu, E, Gunes, T, Akcakus, M, Yikilmaz, A, Buyukkayhan, D, Hatipoglu, N (2008). Thyroid volumes in newborns of different gestational ages: normative data. Arch. Dis. Child. Fetal Neonatal Ed. 93: F171-F171 [Full Text]  
• Perry, R J, Maroo, S, Maclennan, A C, Jones, J H, Donaldson, M D C (2006). Combined ultrasound and isotope scanning is more informative in the diagnosis of congenital hypothyroidism than single scanning. Arch. Dis. Child. 91: 972-976 [Abstract] [Full Text]  

eLetters:

Read all eLetters

Re: Ultrasound of the thyroid gland in the newborn

Selim Kurtoglu, et al.

Fetal Neonatal Ed. Online, 2 Dec 2002 [Full text]