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The relation of the thyroid to the sex glands was known to the ancients in its
crudest external manifestations - the thyroid enlargement with menstruation,
puberty, pregnancy and menopause1.
Indeed, it has long been a belief that the thyroid gland enlarges during the second half of the menstrual cycle. This has recently been confirmed by modern ultrasonographic techniques. Hegedus et al51 found in 11 healthy women a mean thyroid volume of 15.4±3.1 ml on day 9 of cycle and of 24.4±4.8 ml on day 23 (p<0.01). Obviously, some old observations have a grain of truth. There are very limited data in the literature concerning euthyroid goiter and menstrual abnormalities. In one such study, Joshi et al20 found that 38 (43%) out of 87 euthyroid female patients had disturbances of menstruation. Precisely, 22 had oligo-hypomenorrhoea, 4 amenorrhoea and 12 poly-menorrhagia. However, it has to be mentioned that the diagnosis of euthyroidism was established by measuring T4, T3 and TSH. No free T4 and free T3 measurements were done and most probably, as the paper published in 1993, TSH was measured by a non-sensitive assay. This allows us to speculate that a percentage of these patients might had suffered from subclinical hypothyroidism which may be the cause of menstrual irregularities. |
