What does "mild heterogeneity of the thyroid gland" mean?

Question

As written on a CT scan report?

Answer 1

Hello,

It means "slightly different in different places."

If you look at a broad cross-section of the thyroid gland, it should be pretty much the same wherever you look.  If it is, that is called being 'homogeneous.'   If you look at different parts of the cross-section, and they look a bit different depending on where you look, that is being 'heterogeneous.'

The pronunciations in the UK are,  hoe-MOJJ''-en-uss,  het-ter-OJJ''-en-uss, and het-ter-ojen-Ay''- itty.

The words are also used in normal language, for example you could a rice pudding 'heterogeneous,' because some parts of it are lumpy and some parts of it are smooth.   On the other hand, a glass of water would be 'homogeneous,' because wherever you looked in the glass, the water would appear the same.

The prefix, homo-  means "the same,"  and "hetero-"  means, different.  Same as in the words, homosexual and heterosexual.

In the context of this CT scan report, I think 'mild' means probably "not enough to bother about," and 'heterogeneous" means "a bit different depending on where you look."

If you want a more detailed translation of this CT scan report, you will need to post the whole scan report.

I hope this is of some help.

Best wishes,

Belliger (retired uk gp)