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Thyroid Unit

We have doctors located throughout the New York City area.

The thyroid is a butterfly-shaped gland that sits in front of the windpipe and produces hormones that affect your metabolism, growth, and development. The doctors at NYU Langone’s Thyroid Unit, at multiple locations in the New York City area, emphasize personalized care for people of all ages who are experiencing a thyroid disorder.

We begin by taking a comprehensive medical history and performing a physical examination. We then determine which tests are best to help us make a diagnosis and create a treatment plan. We work together with your primary care physician and other specialists to provide complete management of your thyroid problem, from treatment to ongoing therapy to follow-up care.

Dr. Steven Hodak Consults with a Patient

Our specialists, like Dr. Steven Hodak, offer personalized care to people with thyroid disorders.

We offer several tests for thyroid nodules at NYU Langone, including biochemical testing, nuclear medicine scans, neck ultrasonography imaging, and fine needle biopsy. We work continuously with the leadership and technical staff of each of these laboratories for the most accurate diagnosis.

Test results are usually ready on the same day and can be shared in a variety of secure electronic formats for fast and simple distribution to your doctors and other members of your medical team.

Molecular Diagnostic Testing

For some thyroid nodules, traditional methods are unable to identify whether cancer cells are present. For these patients, we offer molecular diagnostic testing of the cells removed during a fine needle biopsy. 

Molecular diagnostic testing, through an advanced test called ThyroSeq® that was developed in part by NYU Langone experts, looks at more than 1,000 locations on about 60 genes within the thyroid tissue to identify whether the cells have a low or high likelihood of being cancerous.

The results from this test allow our experts to recommend either watchful waiting of the thyroid nodule, avoiding unnecessary treatment, or the appropriate treatment for the exact type of thyroid condition identified through molecular diagnostic testing. 

If you need further evaluation or treatment for thyroid cancer, we collaborate closely with experts at NYU Langone’s Perlmutter Cancer Center.

Cutting-Edge Research and Surgical Treatment

Some of the most recent breakthroughs in understanding the thyroid and how to treat it have been made here at NYU Langone. Our laboratory has fine-tuned its imaging techniques so well over the last five decades that we’ve been able to more accurately distinguish between benign and malignant thyroid nodules, drastically cutting down on unnecessary surgeries. We organize monthly conferences to allow our team of doctors to share their latest academic research findings and discuss innovative approaches to treating difficult thyroid problems.

We offer minimally invasive procedures such as video-assisted thyroidectomy, during which a high-definition camera is used to perform surgery through a small incision, making recovery time shorter and scarring minimal. We use recurrent laryngeal nerve monitoring during thyroid surgery to minimize the risk of nerve damage.

If you need radioactive iodine therapy, we use only the necessary dosage to destroy the diseased cells while protecting the normal thyroid tissue to ensure the best recovery possible and your overall safety.

In addition, tissue banking of thyroid tumors—saving tissue specimens with a patient’s permission—allows us to conduct scientific research to identify new molecular markers and potential targets to treat thyroid cancer.