[Thyroid gland function after therapy of the laryngeal cancer: prospective examinations]

The paper presents the results of the study concerning thyroid gland function of the patients suffering from larynx cancer treated with: a) surgery only (n = 31), b) surgery with further radiotherapy with radical doses 5400-7000 cGy (n = 44), c) radiotherapy along with radical doses 6400-7000 cGy (n = 7). 82 patients (M-73, F-9) were examined. Average age was 58 (min. 30, max. 80). Thyroid gland function was evaluated by measurement of: a) hTSH, fT3, fT4, b) serum lipids concentration. The examinations mentioned above were performed before as well as after the treatment at: a) 1, b) 1-6, c) 6-12, d) 12-24, e) longer than 24 months after completion of treatment. The longest period of observation involved 8 years. Our results show that hypothyroidism (mostly subclinical) occurs seldom (6% of all the cases) in the early phase (up to 1 month) after surgical treatment. After radiotherapy only--no subclinical hypothyroidism was observed. The combined treatment seems to be the most frequent cause of subclinical hypothyroidism. Its frequency increases (up to 27%) with the length of time since the conclusion of treatment. We also tried to explain the pathogenesis of subclinical hypothyroidism on the basis of histopathologic examination of thyroid tissue (n = 13) derived from the patients after various ways of treatment. The studies were compared to the results of histological examinations of the thyroid sections obtained during autopsy (n = 20) from the control group (not suffered from thyroid diseases).