THE CLINICAL AND PATHOLOGIC RELATIONSHIPS OF HYPERPLASTIC AND NONHYPERPLASTIC GOITER

Abstract

The study of the clinical and pathologic relationships of the various types of goiter has of necessity been followed with the greatest interest in the surgical clinics. In a short paper it is impossible to review the various contributions to the subject. The following points, however, may be selected from the work done in these clinics: the clinical classification of the cases of goiter into simple or exophthalmic or equivalent terms, and the pathologic classification of the thyroids removed at operation into those with and those without sufficient hyperplastic or hypertrophic changes to characterize the gland; the recognition of toxic-goiter heart in a certain percentage of cases that are not diagnosed exophthalmic goiter and a less generally well-defined idea that the cardiac damage is only one of the manifestations of a general toxicosis; the finding of hyperplastic changes in from 70 to 90 per cent, of the thyroids removed for