RBH offers comprehensive thyroid treatment services

Jul 24, 2024 11:10 AM

The thyroid gland does a lot for your body. It makes hormones that keep organs running properly. It also controls the way you use energy: for example, how you burn calories and how fast your heart beats.

The thyroid is a small butterfly-shaped gland in the neck, just in front of the windpipe.

There are two types of thyroid disease.

These are:

1-Hyperthyroidism, where the body produces too much thyroid hormone. Symptoms include nervousness, anxiety, mood swings, difficulty sleeping, persistent tiredness, unusual or irregular fast heart rate, trembling and weight loss. An overactive thyroid is about 10 times more common in women than men, and typically occurs between 20 and 40 years of age.

2-Hypothyroidism, where the body produces too little thyroid hormone. Common signs of an underactive thyroid are tiredness, weight gain, dry skin and hair, muscle aches and feeling depressed. Both men and women can have an underactive thyroid, although it’s more common in women.

The only accurate way of finding out whether you have a thyroid problem is to have a thyroid function test, where a sample of blood is tested to measure your hormone levels.

One of Bahrain’s state-of-the-art health care facilities – Royal Bahrain Hospital (RBH) – is offering specialised, comprehensive thyroid treatment services.

“Thyroid gland disorders are a collection of distinct group disorders that are related to two things – function of the gland, which could be high production of hormone or hyperthyroidism or low production or hypothyroidism,” senior consultant for endocrinology and diabetes at RBH Dr Wiam Hussein told the GDN.

“The other is size of gland, which if enlarged could mean the patient is suffering from goitre, or it could develop nodules or growths. In both cases, it’s imperative to get it checked to rule out the chances of cancer,” he added.

With an expertise in ear, nose and throat, as well as head and neck treatments, specialised in thyroid surgery, and endocrinology and diabetes, as well as new concepts in Bahrain like interventional radiology, RBH is renowned in the kingdom providing all-round thyroid treatment, using the latest advanced technology, ensuring a smooth experience for patients.

In the case of abnormal thyroid gland functioning, RBH offers a blood test, the results of which will be shared within 24 hours. Following this, the necessary treatment or medication will be prescribed. When it comes to the size of the gland, RBH has experienced radiologists who will recommend a biopsy to test if the gland is malignant or not.

In case a biopsy is needed, RBH is the first and only private institution to offer interventional thyroid radiology by a consultant interventional radiologist, a concept new to the kingdom. Interventional radiology is a medical specialty that performs various minimally-invasive procedures using medical imaging guidance without a scalpel.

“Interventional radiology is a very sophisticated and advanced, high-tech medical specialty. At RBH, we carry out major thyroid treatments without surgery – no scalpel and knives, anaesthesia, nor long-term admission,” senior consultant for interventional radiology at RBH Dr Ahmed Mordi revealed.

“In the case of thyroid nodules, which leads to neck disfigurement, we can treat the enlargement without cutting your skin or causing a collar incision. We do the procedure using a needle through a pin hole which is a couple of millimetres in diameter, under local anaesthesia.

“We also provide thyroid artery embolisation where we can block the arteries that feed the gland, causing it to shrink by itself. So, patients don’t need to undergo surgery or depend on thyroid pills for life,” he noted.

However, in some cases, surgery is required and RBH offers a well-rounded expertise and technology for this option.

“We do surgery for thyroid in some cases when the gland is big enough to be pressing on the airway or swallowing tube, causing breathing and swallowing difficulties,” consultant otolaryngologist, and head, neck and thyroid surgeon at RBH Dr Mostafa Ammar explained.

“We also recommend surgery in case of thyroid cancer or a hyperactive thyroid gland that can’t be controlled by medication,” he added, highlighting RBH’s ‘top-notch tech’ for diagnosis and surgery.

High experience in thyroid surgery is critical to preserve the nerves moving the vocal cords and the parathyroid glands controlling the calcium level in our blood.

At RBH, thyroid surgical treatments are a one-day procedure where the patient can go home on the same day, with a small scar and no drain, which means lesser chances of an infection.