Coincidental Thyroid Pathologies in Forensic Autopsies

It's known that thyroid hyperplasia is one of the most common coincidental lesion of the thyroid gland and microcarcinomas can be seen in autopsies. In our study, it is aimed to investigate the frequencies of thyroid lesions in adult and child cases whose autopsies were performed for medicolegal assessment, in our region. The importance of autopsies was assessed to express the role of thyroid diseases as a cause or promote of death. Besides, thyroid diseases mostly seen in our region and coincidental thyroid pathologies mostly seen in autopsi cs were compared and discussed. In this study, it was planned to getting thyroid gland samples prospectively from cases whose autopsies were made in institution of İzmir Forensic Medicine Morgue Speciality Department between April 2009 and April 2010. During the study, thyroid samples from 210 non-putrefied cases were obtained. Age, gender, causes of death, manner of death, weight and morphology of thyroid gland, thyroid pathologies were evaluated. Data were analysed using SPSS software (Version 11.0 for Windows) The cases included in the study were 161 men and 49 women. The mean age was 49.44 ± 18.25. The mean weight of thyroid gland was estimated as 40.71±27.95 gram and thyroid lesions were determined in 96 cases on histopatho logical examination. The prevalence of thyroid pathologies in autopsies was 45 %, the iodine intake is commonly accepted as enough in our region. There was a slight significant correlation between the gland weight and age; there wasn't any significant correlation between the gland weight and gender. The most common lesions were nodular hyperplasia (29.5%), lymphocytic thyroiditis (5.7%) and hashimoto thyroiditis (5.7%). Metastatic small cell lung carcinoma was identified in one case and congenital epithelial cyst (branchial cyst) was detected in another case. Examination of thyroid glands routinely at forensic autopsies, not only would be useful in determining the cause of death, but also will contribute to the social health data by yielding the profile of hidden thyroid diseases and especially thyroid malignancies.