Goiter in an eighteenth-century Sicilian mummy

Goiter is still a frequent pathological condition of the thyroid gland. Goi ter consists of an enlargement of the gland caused by several physiopatholo gic events, the most important of which is deficient intake of iodine. A se ries of eighteenth-century mummies housed in the church of Santa Maria dell a Grazia in Comiso includes one individual showing a pathological condition , with a very large swelling in the antero-inferior region of the neck. X-r ays showed small scattered radiopaque foci. Routine histology showed a larg e number of circular follicles immersed in fibrous tissue. Finally, immunoh istochemistry revealed a strong reactivity for thyroglobulin. The data conf irmed the nature of the tissue as thyroid, and the macroscopic diagnosis is that of thyroid goiter. (C) 1999 Wiley-Liss, Inc.