ULTRASONIC ASSESSMENT OF THE LINGUAL THYROID-GLAND IN CHILDREN

Demonstration of ectopic thyroid tissue is diagnostic of thyroid dysge nesis, Delineating the lingual thyroid is, therefore, one of the impor tant issues in ultrasonic imaging. We delineated the lingual thyroid i n eight patients with congenital hypothyroidism using two basic scanni ng positions: the midline sagittal the floor of the mouth, All the lin gual thyroids were located close to the hyoid bone, This location corr elated well with the observations on radioisotope scanning, We emphasi se the importance of a knowledge of the sonographic anatomy of the flo or of the mouth in obtaining satisfactory results in this examination.