Endocrine Abstracts

Introduction: Thyroid gland is susceptible for nodulation. It is not clear which mechanism is responsible for the growth of only some follicular cells resulting in nodule formation. Selenium deficiency may a risk factor in the development of thyroid nodules. The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between selenium levels in patients with euthyroid nodular thyroid diseases.

Design: Euthyroid 70 patients with solitary thyroid nodule, euthyroid 70 patients with more than one nodule healthy 60 patients without thyroid nodule were included in the study. Venous serum samples were stored at -80 °C and studied at the same day by spectrometric method.

Results: Selenium levels of patients with multiple thyroid nodules, solitary nodules and patients without nodules respectively were 57.3±1.76 μg/l; 58.7±1.80 μg/l and 57.6±1.71 μg/l. The mean serum selenium level of all patients included in the study was 57.92±14.43 μg/l. Serum selenium levels were minimally higher in men, although statistically significant difference was not observed. In our study, significant relationship between serum selenium levels and nodular thyroid disease was not seen.

Conclusion: Our study was done in a iodine sufficient area. Mean serum selenium levels were lower compared to other studies in Turkey. This condition can be associated with the low selenium content of the soil. Nodular thyroid disease shows multifactorial features. Besides iodine deficiency additional factors such as selenium deficiency can be responsible for the increase of nodule formation. Further studies should be done to assess the role of selenium in the thyroid nodule formation.