Patients with chronic lymphocytic thyroiditis combined with calcified nodules need attention

  Recently, a doctor consulted me about his wife’s thyroid condition. The patient had no neck symptoms, and blood was drawn to find slightly high thyroid peroxidase antibodies and thyroglobulin antibodies greater than 1000 IU/ml for six months. Recently, color ultrasound showed lamellar hypoechoic areas in the thyroid gland, and a calcified, hypoechoic, small nodule with unclear borders in each of the left and right lobes. This is a typical manifestation of chronic lymphocytic thyroiditis combined with microscopic papillary thyroid cancer. My opinion was to surgically remove the bilateral lobes and to perform intraoperative frozen section examination.  The patient was immediately hospitalized and the surgery was performed immediately. The pathology confirmed: bilobar chronic thyroiditis combined with microscopic papillary thyroid carcinoma in the right lobe.  This is another clinically confirmed case. The incidence of Hashimoto’s thyroiditis combined with papillary thyroid carcinoma has been on the rise in recent years. Therefore, patients with Hashimoto’s thyroiditis found to have calcified, hypoechoic, small nodules with unclear borders should undergo ultrasound examination once every 3 months in conservative cases, and surgery should be considered in aggressive cases.