Subacute Thyroiditis RECOVERY

            Male patient, 61 year old. History of hypertension without current treatment and smoking for 30 years. In recent days, pain and swelling mainly in the right side of the neck. About a month ago started with headache, fever, intermittent diaphoresis, sore throat, tachycardia. TSH (02/2012): 0,022 uIU / ml. On march 8th, radioactive iodine uptake was diminished being at 2 h 1% and at 24 h 3% (See Normal Values). Notice in the left hand side, no thyroid visualization on the scan done with 99mTc-pertechnectate. On march 30th patient became asymptomatic. Thyroid scintigraphy shows increased uptake in the gland including the pyramidal lobe, indicating quick and complete recovery.

            Either thyroid scintigraphy or RAIU can be used to demonstrate the low iodine gland uptake. The results of this research showed that either poor thyroid visualization on thyroid scan, or low uptake with I-131 at 2 hours ( 4%) and at 24 hours ( 5%), had better correlation with the clinical diagnosis of subacute thyroiditis, than those with ultrasound (1).

            Recovery of de Quervain thyroiditis, occurs usually in several weeks and spontaneously.

References:

1  Gonzalez Patricio, Liberman Claudio, Quevedo Lidya and Jaimovich Rodrigo. A Comparison Between Two Imaging Techniques for the Diagnosis of Subacute Thyroiditis (De Quervain Thyroiditis). Clin Nucl Med 2010;35: 862–864.

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