|
| |
Online Medicine: Thyroid Disease Manager
From: University of Chicago
| By:
|
 he symptoms of thyroid diseases are easy to miss and, at their mildest, could be mistaken for the effects of a rough day--fatigue, weakness, irritability, insomnia. In recent years, though, doctors have found that thyroid diseases are far more common than was previously thought. Because of the frequency of these symptoms and the simplicity of blood testing for thyroid disorders, doctors are considering thyroid diseases as culprits earlier in the search for a diagnosis, and they must now be well versed in these diseases. |
Leslie J. De Groot of the University of Chicago and Georg Hennemann of Erasmus University Medical School in Rotterdam have assembled a worldwide team of researchers and physicians to create Thyroid Disease Manager (www.thyroidmanager.org), an interactive resource on thyroid diseases, diagnosis and therapies. Because the Web is more accessible than an expensive textbook, and because the Web is teeming with questionable health information, the authors have created an expandable and trustworthy online source of medical thyroid information. |
Thyroid Disease Manager (TDM) is a constantly updated, searchable and enhanced online version of De Groot, Hennemann and P. Reed Larson's textbook, The Thyroid and Its Diseases, which is organized into chapters covering anatomy and physiology, diagnosis and treatment. Frequent updates are necessary in an active field in which patient health is at stake; an educational grant from Knoll Pharmaceutical Company allows TDM to be overhauled yearly, and the site's News section, in which recent studies are summarized, is updated as soon as new findings are published in medical journals. A section of Web links directs patients and physicians to thyroid disease organizations and additional information. |
Among the riches of information on TDM are several chapters on specific disorders, like Grave's disease and hyperthyroidism, descriptions and diagrams of normal and abnormal hormone chemistry, and a guide to evaluating a patient's thyroid function and anatomy. A chapter explaining the role of thyroid function in other body systems puts the necessity of thyroid health in its proper perspective. |
Though grasping the text's medical terminology may be a challenge to patients, those with thyroid diseases may be enlightened on the subjects of biochemical thyroid function, modes of diagnosis and other treatment options. A section called Algorithms guides physicians through disease management for hyper- and hypothyroid, enlarged thyroid, nodules, surgical choices and treatment options; this section will be most helpful to patients seeking clarity about their course of treatment and, sometimes, the lifelong management of thyroid disease. |
|
| |
