Abstract:

Background: Thyroid diseases are among the leading endocrine disorders affecting the big number of people worldwide. There is variation in terms of sex, age, and geographical location in thyroid diseases treated by operations. Histopathology lesions of the thyroid gland are of importance not only because they affect the functions of other organs but also since most are amenable to highly effective surgical or medical treatment yet there are limited data about these disorders in our setting.

Objective: To determine the histopathological pattern and short-term complications among patients with surgically treated thyroid diseases of thyroid diseases at Bugando Medical Centre.

Methods: This was hospital based prospective cross-section study with short term follow up components involving all patients with surgically treated thyroid diseases seen at Bugando Medical Centre Hospital for a period of 6 months (October 2019 to March 2020

Results of the study: A total of 84 patients were involved in this study 77(91.67%) females and 7(8.33%) males giving a ratio of female to male ratio 11:1, age of surgically treated patients ranged from 14 to 76 years. The majority of all patients recruited, fell under the age category of 31-50 who account for 47 (55.95%) while the least group been recruited was >70 years 4 (4.76%). 62(73.81%) patients were having Intra/post-operative complications were hemorrhage was the leading intra operative complications 29 (34.52%), while only 1 patient succumbed an infection (1.19%). The pain was assessed separately on special tool (VAS) and it was found that 49 (58.33%) had mild pain and 8 (9.52%) had severe and also 8(9.52%) had no pain. 76 (90.50%) had benign histological findings had results showed colloid goiter was the leading accounted for 34 (44.74%) and 8(9.5%) was having short term complications were incision scar was the leading accounted for 45(53.57%). On chi-square test, it showed that there was strong statistically significant relationship/association between intraoperative or postoperative complications with residence (P=0.014), between histological findings and age (P=0.021), between hypothyroidism and age (P=0.005).

Conclusion: Concerning histological patterns, there was a change of malignancy patterns in our setting with an increase of papillary carcinoma which is different from the previous study which showed follicular carcinoma was the leading but there is a similarity with other studies outside the country. Also regarding short term complications which was not much highlighted in the previous study but in this study, there was a big number of patients who upon follow up clinic visits we noticed complications such as hypothyroidism, change of voice and hypocalcaemia.