[Thyroid nodules in children. Experience at the National Children Hospital of Costa Rica]

Clinical charts and biopsies of 32 children with thyroid nodules were reviewed at the National Children's Hospital from 1970 to 1988. The classification between benign and malignant types was only possible by surgery and biopsy. Twenty three (72%) were found to be benign forms and nine (28%) were carcinomas (8 papillary and one follicular). Two of the carcinomas had been irradiated previously because of neuroblastoma, as well as one of the benign type who received radiation to the neck and mediastinum because of a Hodgkin's disease. No patients showed alteration in thyroid functional test (T4 and TSH). Twenty two per cent of the carcinomas and 16% of the benign forms presented higher retention in the gammagram test. Seventy eight per cent of the carcinomas and 70% of the benign types showed a normal gammagram test. Surgery in the benign cases included 10 hemithyroidectomy, 7 sub-total thyroidectomy, 3 total thyroidectomy and 3 node resection. Carcinoma cases included 6 patients with total thyroidectomy with ganglionar modified dissection in three patients; 2 hemithyroidectomy and one with sub-total thyroidectomy. Complications included 3 hypoparathyroidisms, one of them permanent, 3 transitory recurrent paresis and only one child died because of pulmonary metastasis. All carcinoma patients were treated with levothyroxine and three of them also received 1131 in order to control ganglionar metastasis. Total survival rate for carcinoma patients was 83% at 90 months. It is concluded that only with surgery it is possible to classify correctly the histological type of children with thyroid nodes. Clinical evaluation and laboratory tests are useless. However, it has not been defined how big the surgery must be.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)