Ultrasonographic determination of thyroid volume in infants and children from Aegean region of Turkey and comparison with national and international references.

OBJECTIVES Accurate diagnosis and follow-up of pediatric patients with thyroid disorders, depends on the availability of appropriate data for normal thyroid volume (TV). The aim of this study was to determine the TV by ultrasonography (US) in subjects from the newborn period up to 18 years of age from the Aegean region of Turkey. METHODS We measured the thyroid volumes in 513 children using US and compared them with the children's age, gender, standard deviation score (SDS) of body height (BH-SDS), body weight (BW-SDS), body mass index (BMI-SDS), and body surface area (BSA-SDS). The 3rd, 50th, and 97th percentiles of the age-dependent distribution of the TV were calculated and compared with national and international references. RESULTS The BH, BW, BMI, and BSA of all the participants were within the normal ranges for Turkish children. The TV was significantly positively correlated with age, gender, BH-SDS, BW-SDS, BMI-SDS, and BSA-SDS in all subjects (r=0.748, r=0.267, r=0.730, r=0.735, r=0.664 and r=0.735, respectively; p<0.0001 for all). The most important predictors for TV were age and BW-SDS, followed by BSA-SDS and BH-SDS. In multivariate regression, age and BW-SDS were the only significant independent predictors for TV. Our results were nearly similar to the corresponding data reported by the World Health Organisation in 2004. CONCLUSIONS The present study provides updated values for TV that can serve as a potential tool in differentiating the normal from the abnormal size of the thyroid gland in children aged 0-18 years from the Aegean region of Turkey.