[The miraculous minerals of Michele Mercati. Natural history between medicine and the clergy in Rome in the second half of the Sixteenth century].

Many Italian scholars in the sixteenth century studied minerals. This was not only for the sake of increasing geological knowledge. Minerals, like all other natural phenomena, reflected divine order.

Interrelationships between age, thyroid volume, thyroid nodularity, and thyroid function in patients with sporadic nontoxic goiter.

Purpose: To test the hypothesis that during the natural history of sporadic nontoxic goiter (SNG), a diffuse goiter precedes a multinodular goiter with gradual development of autonomous thyroid function.

Patients And Methods: A cross-sectional survey of 102 consecutive patients with SNG (seven male, 95 female) was performed. Thyroid volume was measured by ultrasonography, and plasma thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH) by a sensitive assay (TSH immunoradiometric assay).

Comparison of placebo with L-thyroxine alone or with carbimazole for treatment of sporadic non-toxic goitre.

The efficacy of treatment with TSH-suppressive doses of L-thyroxine (T4, 2.5 micrograms/kg body weight daily) either alone or combined with carbimazole (CBZ, 40 mg daily) was studied in 78 patients with sporadic non-toxic goitre in a prospective placebo-controlled double-blind randomised clinical trial. Treatment was given for 9 months, with 9 months of follow-up.

The long-term outcome of thyroidectomy for sporadic non-toxic goitre.

To study the long-term outcome after thyroidectomy, 113 sporadic non-toxic goitre patients who underwent thyroidectomy in our hospital in the period 1974-1983, were studied. Five patients complained of recurrent goitre; a goitre was found on inspection and palpation in these five and in 15 others. There were no differences between the 20 patients with goitre and the 93 patients without goitre with regard to sex, age, duration of goitre, indication and type of thyroidectomy, postoperative thyroid hormone medication, period of follow-up, and T4, T3, or TSH plasma values at the time of follow-up examination.

The value of thyroid volume measured by ultrasonography in the diagnosis of goitre.

Unlabelled: Thyroid volume was measured by ultrasonography in 80 euthyroid patients with sporadic nontoxic goitre and in 50 healthy adults, all residing in non-iodine deficient areas. All patients were referred because of complaints of goitre and had been diagnosed as cases of goitre by inspection and palpation. The thyroid volume in 15 patients with goitre (19%) was within the normal reference range (4.