[The possibilities of infrared thermography in the diagnosis of thyroid pathology]

The paper is concerned with the results of a retrospective analysis of the diagnostic value of infrared thermography of the thyroid by comparing clinical, histological (75.8% of observed cases) and thermographic diagnoses. Altogether 300 persons were examined, of them 30 were healthy subjects. The clinical diagnosis was based on the results of RIA, radio-isotope, immunological and preoperative cytological methods of investigation. The thermographic criteria of euthyroidism, hypo- and hyperthyroidism permitted accurate characterization of thyroid function in all the examinees, the diagnosis of toxic types of goiter (90.3% of coincidence with clinical diagnosis and 88.3 - with histological diagnosis for diffuse toxic goiter, 83.3 and 85.7% - the nodular toxic goiter), and assessment of the effect of thyrostatic therapy. During pregnancy (48 cases) thermograms of the thyroid of pregnant women were similar to the euthyroid ones, indicating a possibility to use thermography as an objective method of diagnosis of thyroid pathology in pregnancy. This method is informative in the diagnosis of benign nodular lesions (96% of coincidences with histological diagnosis) and less informative in malignant neoplasms and autoimmune thyroiditis (53.8 and 23.5% of coincidences with histological diagnosis).