설갑상선의 1례

The occurrence of a lingual thyroid is not common. It usually results from failure of descent from the foramen cecum of the primitive thyroid anlage in the embryo. The incidence is much higher in female and seventy percent or more of the case have no other functioning thyroid.

While diagnosis may be suspected by clinical observation, it should be confirmed by scanning of the neck and tongue area after the ingestion of radioactive iodine, and biopsy.

The treatment varies, depending upon the problem that arise.

Recently the authors experienced one case of lingual thyroid who admitted because of frequent horseness and the foreign body sensation in the throat. It is a case of lingual thyroid with normally located functioning thyroid gland in 22 year-old female patient. The coexience of a lingual thyroid with a normally located functioning thyroid gland is thus very rare, so we report this case with review of literatures.