Evaluation of appreciable filling defect in thyroid scan

A summary of various data of the thyroid function test and clinical and pathological findings over 94 patientswho have appreciable filling defect on their thyroid scan, among 860 patients received thyroid function tests dueto suspected thyroid diseases at the Radiology and Nuclear Medicine, College of Medicine, Yonsei University, wasdiscussed and evaluated. 1. The incidence of cold nodule in female is about 9.5 times more frequent than in male,and the majority of patients (72.3%) were in the 2nd through 3rd decades. 2. The cold nodules are more distributedin right lobe (60.0%) than in left lobe and more distributed in lower portions of both lobes (54.2%) than in middleand upper portions. 3. The clinical symptoms supporting the evaluation of thyroid functional state in variousthyroid diseases are not helpful for patients with cold nodules. 4. Considering the mean values of various thyroidfunction tests of patients with cold nodules, the value of 1-131 thyroid uptake test is in lower limit of normalrange, the value of T3-RBC uptake test in normal range, and the value of PBI test in upper limit of normal range.5. Considering the filling defect portion on thyroid scan by cold nodule as fraction, in the case of involvingentire one lobe the values of all thyroid function tests are more meaningfully decreased than in other cases butthe case of involving more than half an lobe to one lobe compared with the case of involving less than half alobe, the values of thyroid uptake tests are not meaningfully changed but the values of T3-RBC uptake tests or PBItests are moreover increased in the former.