Histopathological Spectrum of Non-Neoplastic and Neoplastic Lesions of Thyroid: A Descriptive Cross-sectional Study

Thyroid gland lesions are the most common endocrine disorders encountered globally. Diseases of the thyroid gland present with either an alteration of hormone secretion or as an enlargement of the thyroid gland. The objective of the study is to find the frequency of different thyroid lesions.

A descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted at Manipal Teaching Hospital, Pokhara from Jan 2005 to Jan 2020. Ethical approval was taken from the Institutional Review Committee (Ref: 330). Patients who had undergone thyroidectomy procedures for both non-neoplastic and neoplastic thyroid lesions were enrolled. Convenient sampling was done. IBM Statistical Package for Social Sciences version 21 and Microsoft Excel were used.

Out of 345 thyroidectomy specimens, 246 (71.3%) cases of non-neoplastic lesions, and 99 (28.69%) cases of neoplastic lesions were present. There were 54 males and 291 females with a male to female ratio of 1:5.4. The age ranged from 9 to 76 years with a mean age of 43.67 years. In non-neoplastic lesions, the predominant lesion was the colloid goiter with 205 (83.33%) cases followed by Grave's disease and lymphocytic thyroiditis with 14 (5.69%) cases each. In neoplastic lesions, papillary carcinoma was the commonest lesion with 56 (56.56%) cases followed by follicular carcinoma with 14 (14.14%) cases and follicular adenoma with 13 (13.13%) cases. There were also 9 (9.09%) cases of anaplastic carcinoma in neoplastic lesions.

Colloid goiter and papillary carcinoma was the most commonly encountered non-neoplastic and neoplastic lesion with a female predominance. Rare tumors like anaplastic carcinoma, papillary carcinoma, and follicular carcinoma with anaplastic transformation were also encountered.