The effect of multinodular goitres on the airway
Research type
Research Study
Full title
The effect of multinodular goitres on the airway
IRAS ID
217949
Contact name
Charlotte McIntyre
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Imperial College London
Duration of Study in the UK
2 years, 4 months, 2 days
Research summary
Between 2007 and 2011 Health Episode Statistics recorded 51,168 patients admitted to hospital for thyroid surgery. 62% of these operations were performed for an enlarged thyroid gland. (1) The most common reason for performing surgery on patients with enlarged thyroid glands is for compressive symptoms, such as, breathlessness. Breathlessness occurs because the enlarged thyroid gland compresses the trachea and narrows the space needed to breathe. (2) When a patient with an enlarged thyroid gland reports that they are suffering with compressive symptoms the surgeon must weigh up the risks and benefits of performing a thyroidectomy (surgery to remove part of or the whole of the thyroid gland). Thyroidectomy is a surgery which subjects the patient to risks of serious and life threatening complications. It is difficult to predict if the patient will benefit from the surgery and therefore difficult to weigh up the risks and benefits to each individual patient. At present, we do not have a clinical tool to help us accurately predict if the patient will benefit from having surgery and thereby justify the risk of surgery.
Our study aims to develop a clinical tool to guide our decision to operate on patients with compressive goitres. Using a computer-generated model of the airway we will look at the how a large thyroid gland compresses the airway and how this leads to the symptoms of breathlessness. Our group has used the computational model in previous work and we have found it to be a valid model of measuring airflow and energy losses in the airway. (3) We hypothesize that computational fluid dynamics can be used as a tool to help clinicians identify which patients will benefit from having surgery and thereby avoiding surgery and the associated risks in those patients who will not benefit.
REC name
London - Fulham Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
17/LO/1464
Date of REC Opinion
1 Nov 2017
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion