Computed tomography of the thyroid bone, before it loops posteriorly and inferiorly to the hyoid bone. Then it continues its descent into the infra-hyoid portion of the neck, anterior to the trachea, thyroid cartilage, and thyroid membrane. Any thyroid residual along the descent course may lead to the development of ectopic thyroid glands. Thyroid carcinomas, thyroiditis, and goiter may develop within any ectopic thyroid tissue. Thyroid scanning with technetium-99 m (Tc99m) plays an important role in detecting orthotopic and ectopic thyroid tissue. Both CT scans and US can help detect ectopic tissue when a lesion demonstrates imaging and enhancement characteristics of thyroid tissue. The absence
Computed tomography of the thyroid higher incidence of thyroid cancer and lymph node metastases. The incidence of thyroid cancer among nodules with different calcifications patterns were 79 % of nodules with multiple punctate calcifications, 58 % of nodules with a single punctate calcification, 21 % of nodules with coarse calcification, and 22 % of nodules with peripheral calcification. Most of the single calcified nodules were malignant. However, this did not include patients with ITNs and the sample is skewed towards malignancy. Another study evaluated the presence of ITNs on CT scans and found that 12 % of thyroid nodules were calcified, with no significant correlation