Importance of Thyroid Screening

Importance of Thyroid Screening

The thyroid gland is a small organ that’s located in the front of the neck, wrapped around the windpipe (trachea). It’s shaped like a butterfly, smaller in the middle with two side wings that extend around the side of your throat.

Thyroid gland produces three important hormones – the two thyroid hormones – triiodothyronine (T3) and thyroxine (T4) – and a peptide hormone, calcitonin which are very essential for the normal functioning of our body. The thyroid is a very superficial endocrine gland in our body located in the front part of our neck and can be very easily accessed with sonography machine for detection of any abnormality.

Disease of the thyroid gland is common in our population. The disease includes:

1. Abnormal hormone production where the thyroid gland produces either low level of hormone which is known as hypothyroidism or high level of hormone which is known as hyperthyroidism.

2. Another manifestation of the thyroid abnormality is goitre which in simple terms is a swelling of the thyroid gland that causes a lump in front of the neck. Goitre can arise due to hyperthyroidism, hypothyroidism or due to deficiency of iodine in the salt or due to some medicines such as lithium, a medicine used to treat some mental health conditions.

3. In addition, there are other structural diseases which can be picked only by the radiologists either by doing sonography, CT scan or MRI as in these diseases there might not be any abnormal hormone level or any obvious swelling of the gland. By using these modalities, we can pick various lesions ranging from simple lesion like cyst to infection/ inflammation to cancerous lesion. Like any cancer in the body, its detection in early stage is very advantageous in terms of treatment.

In spite of being a very superficial gland, the thyroid diseases are picked up very late due to ignorance or lack of proper screening program like those available for breast or abdominal organs or heart for example. Hence, it is important to do screening of thyroid gland. Screening helps to rule out any significant disease in your thyroid gland.