NONTOXIC NODULAR GOITER WITH FORMATION AND RELEASE OF A COMPOUND WITH THE CHROMATOGRAPHIC MOBILITY CHARACTERISTICS OF TRIIODOTHYRONINE*

Abstract

In a 14-year-old girl with a large nontoxic nodular goiter, an iodinated compound with the mobility characteristics of 1-triiodothyronine (l-T3) in a series of chromatographic solvent systems was found in large amounts in the serum, and as the almost exclusive compound in the nodular tissue of the left thyroid lobe. Confirmatory evidence was supplied by the distributions of both I131 and I127 iodinated compounds. Co-chromatographic studies with several solvent systems failed to reveal any discrepancy between the behavior of the compound in question and that of I-T3. The fact that the patient was euthyroid and that the function of the right lobe of the thyroid was normal (though suppressible by exogenous l-T3) suggests that the compound was not l-T3. The fact that, after left hemithyroidec-tomy for removal of the nodular tissue, the distribution of stable serum iodine was normal suggests that the compound had been formed and released by the nodular tissue of the left lobe. The chromatographic identity of the compound with l-T3 raises several possibilities as to the nature of this iodinated material that was apparently formed and released by a specific area of the thyroid.