Johnson Ayaka, Edwards Christopher, Reddan Tristan
School of Clinical Sciences Faculty of Health Queensland University of Technology Brisbane Queensland 4000 Australia.
Medical Imaging and Nuclear Medicine Queensland Children's Hospital South Brisbane Queensland 4101 Australia.
Australas J Ultrasound Med. 2019 Nov 1;23(1):33-38. doi: 10.1002/ajum.12189. eCollection 2020 Feb.
Sonographic measurement of the thyroid gland volume is a safe and reliable method for epidemiologic studies in iodine deficiency disorders. Several factors such as age, sex and anthropometric characteristics are known to be the determinants of thyroid gland size but the most widely studied is the effect of insufficient iodine intake. Low iodine intake induces enlargement of the thyroid gland known as goitre. The assessment of urinary iodine concentration alone is not reliable as it can vary daily within individuals. Urinary iodine concentration in conjunction with sonographic thyroid gland measurements is a widely used method of thyroid gland assessment. Establishment of normative thyroid volume is essential for the assessment of iodine deficiency disorders, and studies have been conducted in several countries. These studies have shown that thyroid gland volumes are likely population-specific even in iodine-sufficient countries limiting the effectiveness of international reference ranges. Based on currently available data of sonographic thyroid gland volume measurements and how they vary across populations of school children, this review argues for the establishment of population-specific reference ranges in regions such as Australia, which are now considered iodine-sufficient.
超声测量甲状腺体积是碘缺乏病流行病学研究中一种安全可靠的方法。已知年龄、性别和人体测量特征等几个因素是甲状腺大小的决定因素，但研究最广泛的是碘摄入不足的影响。低碘摄入会导致甲状腺肿大，即甲状腺肿。仅评估尿碘浓度并不可靠，因为个体的尿碘浓度每天都会变化。尿碘浓度与超声甲状腺测量相结合是一种广泛使用的甲状腺评估方法。建立甲状腺体积的正常标准对于评估碘缺乏病至关重要，多个国家都开展了相关研究。这些研究表明，即使在碘充足的国家，甲状腺体积也可能因人群而异，这限制了国际参考范围的有效性。基于目前关于超声甲状腺体积测量的数据以及它们在学龄儿童群体中的差异情况，本综述主张在澳大利亚等目前被认为碘充足的地区建立针对特定人群的参考范围。
