Tuberculosis of the thyroid gland: review of the literature.
OBJECTIVE
Thyroid tuberculosis (TTB) is a very rare condition, even in countries with a high prevalence of tuberculosis. The aim of this article is to review and retrieve data about thyroid tuberculosis from the English-language literature in order to gain a better understanding of the clinical characteristics of TTB.


METHODS
We performed Medline, PubMed, and library searches using the key words "thyroid tuberculosis," "throid disease," "tuberculosis and thyroid." Reference lists of the articles obtained and previous reviews were also examined.


RESULTS
We retrieved 76 cases matching our selection criteria from the search. Review of the cases with TTB revealed a slight female preponderance. The patients reported in the literature ranged in age from 9 to 83 years, with a median age of 40+/-16 years for men and 44+/-17 years for women. In the articles surveyed, TTB presented with a broad spectrum of manifestations, ranging from an isolated nodule to thyrotoxicosis. It seems that diagnosis of thyroid tuberculosis has recently been increasing, perhaps because of the growing incidence of tuberculosis and the diagnostic use of fine-needle aspiration cytology in the diagnosis. Although, in the past, the diagnosis was generally made by the examination of the specimens, at present, fine-needle aspiration cytology seems to be a useful method in diagnosis tuberculous thyroiditis. The role of surgery is limited after the diagnosis. The choice of treatment should be medical antituberculous therapy.


CONCLUSIONS
Preoperative diagnosis of thyroid tuberculosis is important because of the availability of medical treatment and the limited role of surgery. This condition should be kept in mind in evaluating patients with a thyroid nodule, in communities where the prevalence of tuberculosis is high.
Bulbuloglu
Ertan
E
Department of General Surgery, KSU University Faculty of Medicine, Kahramanmaraş, 46050, Turkey. ertanbulbulogul@yahoo.com
Ciralik
Harun
H
Okur
Erdogan
E
Ozdemir
Gokhan
G
Ezberci
Fikret
F
Cetinkaya
Ali
A
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D017677:Age Distribution; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009169:Mycobacterium tuberculosis / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D011379:Prognosis; D035583:Rare Diseases; D018570:Risk Assessment; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D017678:Sex Distribution; D013959:Thyroid Diseases / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000601:surgery; D013960:Thyroid Function Tests; D013965:Thyroidectomy / Q000379:methods; D016896:Treatment Outcome; D014383:Tuberculosis, Endocrine / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000601:surgery; D014421:Turkey / Q000453:epidemiology