Thyroid disease in children and adolescents.

Thyroid diseases in children and adolescents are not common. The present paper describes 73 patients, aged 5 to 18 years, who had thyroid disease which was treated by surgery. Of these, 18 had diffuse simple goiter, 11 had diffuse toxic goiter and 44 had nodular goiter. Of those patients with nodular goiter, 34 had adenomatous goiter, one had lymphocytic thyroiditis, one had lymphosarcoma and eight had cancer. In the patients with nodular goiter under the age of ten years, 40% had cancer, and of those aged 11 to 18 years, 14.7% had cancer. Thyroid nodules were more frequent in girls than in boys, but the incidence of cancer in nodular goiter was higher in boys than in girls.