Clinical analysis of 43 surgically-treated patients with thyroid carcinoma

The authors have analysed 43 patients with thyroid carcinoma who had been treated at the surgery department of the Oncological Institute between 1960 and 1970. The patients are distributed in four groups according to the histologic tumor structure. Considering the specific properties of each particular group, the occurrence of metastases, treatment, survival and prognosis are being discussed. An outline is given on the characteristics of the various forms of thyroid carcinoma from the histological but mainly clinical aspects. The development of regional and distant metastases, surgical treatment, postoperative irradiation or application of radioiodine and hormonal tumor dependence are presented in the paper. The best results were obtained in the papillary and the follicular form, the prognosis in the latter being dependent on the degree of vascular invasion. The solid carcinoma of thyroid shows considerable differences in survival of patients depending on regional metastases and histologic grade. The anaplastic carcinoma has the worst prognosis where survival is expressed in months, exceptions are rare.