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Turkish Journal of Medical Sciences

DOI

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Abstract

This study was planned to compare recurrence of goiters after thyroidectomy in patients who received prophylactic levothyroxine and patients who received no therapy. One hundred and twenty-six patients had been treated by bilateral subtotal thyroidectomy in the General Surgery Clinic of Karadeniz Technical University from 1987 to 1992. Eithy-eight of these patients were included in this study while the remaining patients were excluded as they were non contactable. They were divided into two groups. In group 1, there were 41 patients who had received prophylactic therapy with thyroxine 100 micro grams daily for a period of 9 to 12 months. Group 2 was composed of 47 patients without thyroxine therapy except 11 cases who had received thyroxine for 20 days or less irregularly. The mean follow-up period for all cases was 6.5 years with a range of 4 to 8 years. The results were compared using Fisher's exact test. The recurrence rates were 7.3% (3 cases) and 25.5% (12 cases) in group 1 and group 2 respectively. The difference in recurrence was found to be statistically significant (p

Keywords

Thyroidectomy, goiter recurrence, levothyroxine prophylaxis.

First Page

273

Last Page

278

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