Surgical Treatment for Unexplained Severe Pain of the Thyroid Gland: Report of Three Cases and Concise Review of the Literature

Table 2

Pain relief to treatment and surgical pathology in fifteen cases of painful Hashimoto’s thyroiditis.

Authors	No.	Pain relief to T4	Pain relief to steroids	Pain relief to aspirin or NSAIDS	Time from pain onset to surgery (years)	Pain relief after thyroidectomy	Type of surgery	Pathology
Kon and; DeGroot [6]	1	No	No	Not given	2	Total, permanent	NTT	Focal lymphocytic thyroiditis
	2	No	No	Not given	2	Total, but recurrence after 1 year	NTT	Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, incidental pappilary cancer
	3	No	Rapid but relapsing	Not given	3.1	Total, permanent	NTT	Near end stage thyroiditis
	4	No	Rapid but relapsing	No to NSAID	1.1	Total, permanent	STT	Focal lymphoid infiltrates, sparse Hürthle cells
	5	Partial	Not given	Unable to tolerate NSAID	6.2	Total, permanent	STT	Fibrosis, large reactive lymphocyte follicles, Hürthle cell clusters
	6	No	Not given	No	0.5	Partial	STT	Diffuse lymphocytic thyroiditis
	7	No	Rapid but relapsing	Partial	0.6	Total, relapsed	STT	Hashimoto’s thyroiditis
Ohye; et al. [7]	1	Yes but relapsing	Rapid but relapsing	NM	2.7	Total, permanent	TT	Severe fibrosis, lymphocytic infiltration
	2	No	Rapid but relapsing	NM	4.0	Total, permanent	TT	Severe fibrosis, lymphocytic infiltration
	3	No	Rapid but relapsing	NM	2.0	Total, permanent	TT	Severe fibrosis, lymphocytic infiltration
	4	Not given	Rapid but relapsing	NM	0.75	Total, permanent	TT	Giant cells, mild fibrosis, remaining follicular structure
Gourgiotis; et al. [8]	1	No	Yes, relapsing	NM	>10	Total, permanent	TT	Severe fibrosis, lymphocytic infiltration, Hürthle cells
	2	No	NM	NM	2.1	Total, permanent	TT	Lymphocytic thyroiditis, focal Hürthle cells
Zimmerman et al. [9]	1	No	No	Yes, relapsing	>5	Total, permanent	TT	Lymphocytic infiltration
	2	No	Yes, relapsing	Not given	0.5	Total, permanent	TT	Lymphocytic thyroiditis

NTT: near total thyroidectomy; STT: subtotal thyroidectomy; TT: total thyroidectomy.