[Clinico-morphological comparisons of autoimmune processes in the thyroid gland in the endemic goiter region].

A total of 2558 patients (95% of patients who sustained strumectomy in the Chelyabinsk region in 1969--1977 for euthyroid nodular goiter) were examined. There proved to be a relationship between the iodine content in the food products of the population and the frequency of the morphologically-definable autoimmune processes in the thyroid gland; this dependence was direct for the marked autoaggression processes, and indirect--for the initial ones. This dependence is also confirmed by a rare combination of multinodular goiter with diffuse autoimmune thyroiditis and a frequent one--with the initial autoaggression forms.