Feasibility of thyroid ultrasonography in field studies in a developing country, Ghana

This study was carried out to determine the feasibility of using ultrasonography for goitre estimation in the field situation. It is a cross sectional study that was conducted using community based cluster sample. Thyroid sonography was performed on 112 randomly selected school children aged 10 -15 years from two districts in the Greater Accra area of Ghana, using normative values for thyroid volume recommended by WHO/ICCIDD. The mean age of all subjects was 13.5 years+/-0.13 SEM. The male to female ratio was 1:1. The mean height and weight of the children were 1.5 metres+/-0.9 SEM and 38.1 Kg+/-0.7 SEM, respectively. The mean body surface area was 1.27 m2+/-0.2. There were no significant gender differences in their ages (13.6yrs+/-0.2 SEM, 13.4yrs+/-0.1 SEM, respectively) and height (1.50m+/-1.6 SEM, 1.46m+/-1.7 SEM, respectively). The girls (40.0kg+/-1.2 SEM) weighed more than the boys (35.6kg+/-1.1). The mean and median urinary iodine concentration were 82.4+/-8.5 SEM and 67.9 ug/l, respectively. All the children examined had normal thyroid sonogram. The thyroid volumes ranged from 3.6 ml to 15.3ml. The mean thyroid volume was 7.0ml+/-0.2 SEM and the thyroid volume was higher in the girls (7.5ml+/-0.3 SEM) than the boys (6.5ml+/-0.2 SEM). The criteria of thyroid volume per age and sex yielded a goitre prevalence of 1.8 %. In contrast, the criteria of thyroid volume by surface area yielded a goitre prevalence of 8 %. Our study has shown that it is feasible to employ ultrasonography for field studies to determine goitre prevalence in school children in a developing country such as Ghana. However, the best criteria for goitre in children in Ghana, requires to be confirmed in future studies.