下沢 達雄¹, 田中 祐司¹, 石堂 晴美¹, 西下 聡英¹, 関根 信夫¹, 高野 幸路¹, 貴田岡 正史²

Tatsuo SHIMOSAWA¹, Yuuji TANAKA¹, Harumi ISHIDOH¹, Toshihide NISHISHITA¹, Nobuo SEKINE¹, Kouji TAKANO¹, Masafumi KITAOKA²

¹東京大学医学部第四内科, ²公立昭和病院内分泌代謝科

¹Fourth Department of Internal Medicine University of Tokyo, School of Medicine, ²Department of Endocrinology and Metabolism, Showa General Hospital

キーワード : Graves' disease, Color Doppler, Destructive thyroiditis, Ultrasonography

We report here on a new method using 7.5 MHz color Doppler of Quantum QAD 1 to make precise differential diagnoses between Graves' disease and destructive thyroiditis. Twenty-one cases of Graves' disease, 5 cases of chronic thyroiditis, 3 cases of destructive thyroiditis, and 12 normal controls were examined. Total flow index (TFI) was calculated as follows; TFI= [the area of intrathyroidal blood flow]⁄ [the area of the thyroid gland]. Active Graves' disease (group A) showed an image of "thyroid inferno." On the contrary, patients with destructive thrroiditis showed no blood flow in the destructive changes. TFI was the highest in group A and the lowest in euthyroid cases. These results indicates that color Doppler ultrasonography is a simple and reliable method to make precise differential diagnosis between these two diseases. Moreover, TFI is quite a good adjunct to estimate thyroid function.