Follow-Up Studies of Lithium and Thyroid Function in Manic-Depressive Illness

In an earlier study the authors reported that six out of 19 manic-depressive patients treated with lithium showed evidence of goiter, suggesting that lithium may have goitrogenic properties. They now report the finding of a similar incidence of goiter among 13 patients treated with imipramine. They conclude that three explanations are possible: the incidence of goiter among the general population might be equally high if EAI scanning instead of palpation were used routinely; the incidence of goiter detected among the two groups of patients studied may be a result of various drug treatments, periodic hospitalizations, and dietary insufficiencies; or it may be related to some characteristic of manic-depressive disease.