A thyroid ultrasound is a painless, radiation-free scan of the gland in your neck, and it is the test that made Korea a case study in overdiagnosis. It finds nodules in a large share of healthy adults, most of which will never cause harm. That is worth knowing before you have one, not after.
A probe and gel on the neck. Nothing injected, nothing swallowed.
Sound waves only.
MediOne's published non-covered price, ≈₩80,000.
Hanaro's Bronze program, men's price, ≈₩660,000. KMI Global's Signature offers it as one of two choices in its third option group.
One week is the earliest an imaging slot can be held, and there is no referral step before it.
English report in your hands in about a week. You also get a consultation on preliminary findings on the day of the screening, before you leave.
Programme contents and prices from each partner centre's own foreigner-facing published list, read 2026-08-05: KMI Global, Hanaro Medical Foundation's English site and MediOne's English site. Standalone per-test prices are MediOne's 비급여 (non-covered) posting, the itemised list 의료법 제45조 requires a clinic to publish, read the same day. Scheduling and report turnaround are Meridiko's own operating figures, confirmed 2026-08-06, not a centre's published ones (https://global.kmi.or.kr/examination/foreigner_examination; https://en-mobile.hanaromf.com/program/prog01/prog01_01.jsp; https://en.medionemedicalcenter.com/m1; https://medionemedicalcenter.com/115), measured 2026-08-05.
Nodules, cysts and enlargement in the thyroid, with their size and appearance. It is the test that decides whether a needle biopsy is even worth discussing.
It cannot tell you whether a nodule is cancer. That takes a fine-needle aspiration, and most nodules never need one. It also says nothing about whether the gland is working, which is a blood test.
Suits: Anyone with a lump they can feel, a family history of thyroid disease, or a previous nodule being watched. Also anyone who wants the neck looked at once with a clear head about what a finding would mean.
Should not have it: Nobody, on safety grounds. The argument against it is not risk from the scan, it is what happens after a finding. If you would struggle to leave a small, low-risk nodule alone under observation, that is worth thinking about before booking rather than after.
A thyroid ultrasound looks at structure; a thyroid blood panel (free T4 and TSH) looks at function. They answer different questions and a normal result in one says nothing about the other. Every entry program on this site includes the blood panel; the ultrasound is added higher up the ladder.
Not itemised on the three tiers this site prices. It appears in Hanaro's Bronze program and above, and as an option in KMI Global's Signature and above. MediOne prices it standalone at ≈₩80,000, which is the cheapest way to add it to a program that does not include it.
