What is an enlarged thyroid gland?

Relevant practical research has proved that the occurrence of thyroid enlargement is closely related to the patient's diet. If a patient frequently eats foods high in starch or drinks carbonated beverages, the likelihood of developing a goiter increases. After suffering from thyroid enlargement, the patient's normal metabolic function will be seriously affected, and the hormone secretion in the body will also be reduced. For thyroid patients, it is necessary to understand the causes of thyroid diseases in order to prescribe the right medicine.

(I) Causes of nodular goiter

The cause of thyroid nodules is likely to be multi-factorial, such as genetics, radiation, immunity, geographical factors, goiter-causing factors, iodine deficiency, chemical stimulation and endocrine changes.

Substances that cause goiter include certain foods, drugs, water pollution, soil pollution and environmental pollution; goiter with nodular goiter is prevalent in iodine-deficient areas; radiation damage can cause cancer, but decades of experience and statistics after the use of 131Ⅰ treatment have shown that the main side effect of radioactive 131Ⅰ treatment is not carcinogenesis, but hypothyroidism, especially long-term hypothyroidism. In some patients with multinodular goiter, TGA and TMA tests found a 54.7% positive rate and a single nodule positive rate of 16.9%. Patients with nodular goiter have an inborn error in metabolism that causes compensatory overgrowth of the goiter. The environment lacks intake of trace elements such as selenium, fluorine, calcium, chlorine and magnesium. In short, the pathogenesis of nodular goiter is relatively complex, still unclear and needs to be studied.

2. Pathogenesis of nodular goiter

In recent years, it is also closely related to gene mutation factors involved in thyroid tissue neoplasms. Some people have proposed the "trigger factor-promoter factor" theory, which is that the thyroid gland itself, under the promotion of goitrogenic substances, radiation damage or carcinogens, causes changes in the properties of DNA in the patient's thyroid tissue cells, prompting TSH or other immunoglobulin gene mutations, which continue to develop and change, and can lead to thyroid tissue hyperplasia and even cancer. In the early stage, before changes in autonomous function occur, good results can be achieved through treatment and the proliferative thyroid nodules can disappear. In the late stage, due to the formation of autonomous functional nodules or other changes, drug treatment is difficult to be effective and surgical removal of the nodules is necessary.