When your child has thyroid disease, you want to know they will be treated by experts with vast experience in pediatric conditions. The Pediatric Thyroid Center at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) is one of the few centers in the nation dedicated to caring for the unique needs of children and adolescents with all types of thyroid conditions.

Our experienced team

Whatever resources your child needs, we have them at CHOP. If your child's treatment path goes beyond endocrinology and includes radioactive therapy, surgery, interventional radiology or nuclear medicine, the Pediatric Thyroid Center has experts who are ready to help.

Our center is led by Andrew J. Bauer, MD, FAAP, an internationally recognized leader in pediatric thyroid disease, and Sogol Mostoufi-Moab, MD, MSCE, a pediatrician trained in both endocrinology and oncology. Together, Drs. Bauer and Mostoufi-Moab have evaluated more than 5,000 children for thyroid disease.

In fact, the Pediatric Thyroid Center at CHOP is the busiest center of its kind in the United States. Each year our team:

• Evaluates more than 50 new patients with Graves’ disease
• Evaluates more than 200 new patients with thyroid nodules
• Performs 80 or more thyroid surgeries by our two thyroid surgeons, Scott Adzick, MD, MMM, FACS, FAAP, and Ken Kazahaya, MD, MBA, FACS
• Provides ongoing care for more than 150 patients with thyroid cancer (we diagnose three to four new thyroid cancer patients per month)

Every day the number of the patients we evaluate and treat grows larger. And as thyroid diseases become more complex, we're dedicated to learning everything possible so we can provide the best care.

Why choose CHOP for thyroid surgery

If your child requires thyroid surgery, you will want a pediatric-trained surgeon with extensive experience operating on the thyroid. Experience is critical to achieving the best possible outcome while reducing the risks of surgical complications. Our surgeons have the expertise to avoid problems such as damage to the parathyroid glands (small pea-shaped glands behind the thyroid) and the nerves that control the vocal cords (recurrent laryngeal nerve).

Thyroid surgery volumes: Most experienced surgical teams at other hospitals will complete at least 30 thyroid surgeries per year, but CHOP surgeons at the Pediatric Thyroid Center perform more than 80 thyroid surgeries a year.

Doing this many surgeries means our thyroid specialists have developed a unique set of skills that allow them to:

• Identify risk factors that may lead to thyroid disease
• Provide a detailed review of ultrasound images
• Determine if fine needle aspiration evaluation would be beneficial
• Develop a patient-specific treatment plan, both medical and surgical, based on the interpretation of your child's history, physical exam, and radiology and lab results
• Ensure the appropriate use of radioactive iodine imaging and treatment

Thyroid surgery outcomes: Our center also has an extraordinarily low complication rate after thyroidectomy:

• 0.4% of patients experience recurrent laryngeal nerve injury after a thyroidectomy
• 0.6% of patients experience permanent surgical hypoparathyroidism after thyroidectomy

A study published in the Annals of Surgery in 2016 reports that a patient undergoing total thyroidectomy is far more likely to experience these complications if the surgeon performs fewer than 25 thyroid surgeries per year. Surgeons on the CHOP Pediatric Thyroid Center team perform more than three times that number of surgeries each year.

Our pediatric environment

Every person you and your child will meet in the Pediatric Thyroid Center is here to provide the best possible experience and care, tailored to the unique needs of children. Administrative staff, security, nurses, technicians in the lab and radiology, physicians and all other team members will work to reduce your and your child’s anxiety and ensure your family understands every aspect of diagnosis and treatment.

Our uniquely trained child life specialists are always available to be at your child’s side for outpatient procedures and before surgery. These important members of our team will do whatever they can to reduce the worry that is a normal part of undergoing medical evaluation and care.