[Suppressive hormone therapy for thyroid nodules. Prospective evaluation. Preliminary results]

The benefit of thyroid hormone for patients with thyroid nodule is still controversial. Suppressive therapy is not useful to distinguish benign or malignant tumors, since some malignant nodules become smaller and most benign nodules do not shrink with thyroid hormone therapy. A prospective evaluation was conducted by the french Groupe de Recherche sur la Thyroïde on 123 patients with solitary nodules : ultrasonographic volume of the nodules regressed from 2.76 to 2.39 ml with suppressive doses of levothyroxine for 18 months, while a progression from 3.6 to 4.1 ml was seen for patients with placebo. The benefit of the suppressive therapy was also obvious on the micronodular dystrophy detected by ultrasonography. No side effects were seen in treated patients. These preliminary results argue for the benefit of suppressive therapy, as suggested by meta-analysis of the published randomized trials.