Patients without clinical history of thyroid disease can harbour unsuspected thyroid lesions. The study of the gland at autopsy has been described as the gold standard in the determination of the true prevalence of thyroid lesion. This study was conducted to determine the prevalence and frequency of different thyroid lesions in our environment.

This is a prospective study of 150 consecutive autopsies of patients with no clinical history of thyroid disease between July 2016 and June2017. The Haematoxylin and Eosin sections of the dissected thyroid gland were examined under light microscopy. The data analysed using IBM SPSS version 20 are presented using tables, pie chart and figures. Test of statistical significance was set at p value < 0.5.

There were 88 males and 62 females with a male to female ratio of 1.4:1 with age range of 18 and 80 years. The prevalence of thyroid lesion in the study was 39.3% (59/150). Nodular hyperplasia was most common lesion with prevalence of 24.7% (37/150) followed by follicular adenoma (10.0%) while lymphocytic thyroiditis had the least prevalence (4.6%). No thyroid malignancy was seen. There females have more thyroid lesions than the males (71.6% vs 45.2%).

There is relatively high prevalence of unsuspected thyroid lesion in our environment with the female gender more commonly affected. There is therefore need to increase awareness and institute thyroid screening tests to reduce the thyroid lesion in our environment.

adenoma, follicular, thyroiditis, lymphocytic, nodular hyperplasia