[Endemic goiter in the area of Mielec]

The scope of this report is the incidence of goiter in school children living in Mielec and neighbouring villages. We examined a group of 3537 children aged 6-14. The enlargement of thyroid gland was observed in 49.3% of the population. Judging by the results of the research this region can be regarded as endemic. There might be several reasons for a high incidence of goiter in this region. The most important are: insufficient iodine prophylaxis, pollution of the environment including the pollution with radioiodine after the damage of the Chernobyl reactor.