Thyroid cancer treatment
Alvarez, J.C.; Méndez, J.C.; Morís, C.
Annales d'Oto-Laryngologie et de Chirurgie Cervico Faciale Bulletin de la Societe d'Oto-Laryngologie des Hopitaux de Paris 117(1): 40-44
2000
ISSN/ISBN: 0003-438X PMID: 10671713 Document Number: 519641
Thyroid diseases are common although cancer is rare. There are some controversial issues concerning the extent of surgical treatment of thyroid cancer. We have studied 614 cases of thyroidectomy inducing 82 of mostly papillary and follicular thyroid cancers. We observed that differentiated thyroid cancer has a predilection for the right lobe and one third of papillary tumors are multifocal. We have seen that fine needle aspiration cytology is the most useful preoperative study. Intraoperative frozen biopsy has a good specificity but sensitivity is low in our series, specially for follicular neoplasms. The treatment in our series consisted in total thyroidectomy and, in differentiated cancers, postoperative I-131. Survival is very good for differentiated cancers. Prognosis is poor for anaplastic carcinoma in the short term.