Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2018 Jul;33(4):753-762.
doi: 10.3904/kjim.2015.273. Epub 2017 Jul 7.

Prevalence of thyroid nodules and their associated clinical parameters: a large-scale, multicenter-based health checkup study

Jae Hoon Moon  1 , Min Kyung Hyun  2 , Ja Youn Lee  3 , Jung Im Shim  3 , Tae Hyuk Kim  4 , Hoon Sung Choi  5 , Hwa Young Ahn  6 , Kyung Won Kim  7 , Do Joon Park  4 , Young Joo Park  3   4 , Ka Hee Yi  8
Affiliations

Prevalence of thyroid nodules and their associated clinical parameters: a large-scale, multicenter-based health checkup study

Jae Hoon Moon et al. Korean J Intern Med. 2018 Jul.

Abstract

Background/aims: We evaluated the prevalence and characteristics of thyroid nodules detected by thyroid ultrasound (US) at health checkups and the associated clinical parameters.

Methods: A total of 72,319 subjects who underwent thyroid US at three health checkup centers in Korea from January 2004 to December 2010 were included in this study. The correlations between the presence of thyroid nodules and other clinical parameters were analyzed.

Results: The prevalence of thyroid nodules and cysts was 34.2% (n = 24,757). Thyroid nodules were more prevalent in women and older age groups. Among the subjects with thyroid nodules with size information (n = 24,686), 18,833 (76.3%) had nodules measuring ≤ 1.0 cm. Women and older age groups showed higher proportion of larger nodules. Percentage of women, age, body mass index (BMI), waist circumference, body fat composition, blood pressure, and the level of fasting glucose, total cholesterol, and low density lipoprotein cholesterol were higher in the subjects with thyroid nodules compared to those without nodules. The prevalence of metabolic syndrome and overt/subclinical thyrotoxic state was higher in the subjects with thyroid nodules. In the multivariable logistic regression analysis, women, age, BMI, metabolic syndrome, and thyrotoxicosis were independently associated with the presence of thyroid nodules.

Conclusions: The high prevalence of thyroid nodules in people who underwent thyroid US at a health checkup suggests that increased detection of thyroid nodules resulted in an increased prevalence in the general population. However, metabolic disturbances may also have contributed to the increase in thyroid nodule prevalence in Korea.

Keywords: Metabolic syndrome; Prevalence; Ultrasonography; Thyroid nodule.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

No potential conflict of interest relevant to this article was reported.

References

    1. Mitchell J, Parangi S. The thyroid incidentaloma: an increasingly frequent consequence of radiologic imaging. Semin Ultrasound CT MR. 2005;26:37–46. - PubMed
    1. Davies L, Ouellette M, Hunter M, Welch HG. The increasing incidence of small thyroid cancers: where are the cases coming from? Laryngoscope. 2010;120:2446–2451. - PubMed
    1. Morris LG, Sikora AG, Tosteson TD, Davies L. The increasing incidence of thyroid cancer: the influence of access to care. Thyroid. 2013;23:885–891. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention . Korea Health Statistics 2013: Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (KNHANES VI-1) Cheongju: Ministry of Health and Welfare; 2014.
    1. Yim CH, Oh HJ, Chung HY, et al. Prevalence of thyroid nodules detected by ultrasonography in womens attending health check-ups. J Korean Soc Endocrinol. 2002;17:183–188.

Publication types

LinkOut - more resources