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Whereas multinodular toxic goitre was much
more common in Jutland than in Iceland, solitary
toxic adenomas were only slightly more common
(fig. 6). Asolitary toxic adenoma (fig. 1) is a benign
neoplasm presumeably caused by somatic mutation(s)
in a single cell in an otherwise normal
thyroid gland.
Allowing for the difficulty in separating multinodular glands with a single dominating nodule from a true solitary adenoma our findings may suggest that the amount of iodine intake is of little importance for mutations in otherwise normal thyroid glands. But the goitrogenic process increases the frequency of somatic mutations, as monoclonal nodules with mutations are common in multinodular goitre. A main difference between a solitary toxic adenoma and a multinodular toxic goitre with one or more toxic adenomas is the surrounding tissue, which is either normal or abnormal (compare fig. 1 and fig. 4). |
