Guidance
This guideline covers investigating all suspected thyroid disease and managing primary thyroid disease (related to the thyroid rather than the pituitary gland). It does not cover managing thyroid cancer or thyroid disease in pregnancy. It aims to improve quality of life by making recommendations on diagnosis, treatment, long-term care and support.
NICE has also produced a guideline on thyroid cancer.
In October 2023, we updated recommendations on investigating suspected thyroid dysfunction to highlight the potential for biotin in dietary supplements to affect the results of thyroid function tests.
Recommendations
This guideline includes recommendations on:
- information for people with thyroid disease
- investigating suspected thyroid dysfunction
- managing, follow-up and monitoring of primary hypothyroidism
- managing and monitoring of subclinical hypothyroidism
- managing thyrotoxicosis and follow-up and monitoring of hyperthyroidism
- managing and monitoring of subclinical hyperthyroidism
- diagnosing, managing and monitoring thyroid enlargement with normal thyroid function
See a visual summary on the recommendations for managing and monitoring hyperthyroidism in adults
Who is it for?
- Healthcare professionals
- Commissioners and providers
- People with thyroid disease, their families and carers
Guideline development process
How we develop NICE guidelines
Your responsibility
The recommendations in this guideline represent the view of NICE, arrived at after careful consideration of the evidence available. When exercising their judgement, professionals and practitioners are expected to take this guideline fully into account, alongside the individual needs, preferences and values of their patients or the people using their service. It is not mandatory to apply the recommendations, and the guideline does not override the responsibility to make decisions appropriate to the circumstances of the individual, in consultation with them and their families and carers or guardian.
All problems (adverse events) related to a medicine or medical device used for treatment or in a procedure should be reported to the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency using the Yellow Card Scheme.
Local commissioners and providers of healthcare have a responsibility to enable the guideline to be applied when individual professionals and people using services wish to use it. They should do so in the context of local and national priorities for funding and developing services, and in light of their duties to have due regard to the need to eliminate unlawful discrimination, to advance equality of opportunity and to reduce health inequalities. Nothing in this guideline should be interpreted in a way that would be inconsistent with complying with those duties.
Commissioners and providers have a responsibility to promote an environmentally sustainable health and care system and should assess and reduce the environmental impact of implementing NICE recommendations wherever possible.