Management of undescended lingual and subhyoid thyroid glands

There are approximately 400 reported cases of undescended thyroid glands. Ninety percent of these are located in the base of the tongue, and 10 percent in the anterior neck superficial to the hyoid bone. The presumptive diagnosis is usually made by scintiphotography. These glands are probably quantitatively deficient and function at marginal levels. Apparently, TSH stimulation causes hypertrophy, usually at an early age, producing undesirable symptoms or local cosmetic change. The treatment varies, depending upon the problems that arise: observation, suppressive doses of thyroid, isotope suppression, surgical excision, and autotransplantation are methods used in attempting to benefit these patients. This communication deals with guidelines for therapy and attempts to evaluate allotransplantation based on the available data. To date, some degree of success has been obtained by autotransplantation; however, a more vigorous effort by the medical community is needed to obtain and report clinical and laboratory data to evaluate autotransplantation fully.