[Recurrence of cervical lymph node involvement in surgically treated thyroid cancer. Uselessness of routine cervical...

From 1966 throughout September 1990, 753 patients underwent surgery for thyroid carcinoma, in the same institution, covering all pathological types. Complete follow-up was achieved in 96% of them, being at least 7 years in 50% of cases. 599 (80%) are currently alive. Neck dissection was not routinely done, except for medullary thyroid carcinoma, but rather selectively, if nodes were palpable either pre or intraoperatively, and also (since oct. 1983 i.e. the last 400 cases) if, after routine sampling of mid jugular nodes, frozen sections assessed nodal invasion. On the grounds of this policy, 205 patients underwent unilateral or bilateral neck dissection; 17% of them died during follow-up whereas 5.9% (12 cases) exhibited a cervical nodal recurrence, 6 of them occurring less than two years post-operatively, including 3 medullary thyroid carcinomas. 548 had no neck dissection; 9% died during follow-up whereas 0.9% (5 cases) exhibited a cervical nodal recurrence, 3 of them occurring less than two years post-operatively. Routine neck dissection seems not to be justified in the surgery of non medullary differentiated thyroid carcinoma, in as much as late occurrence of cervical node metastases is uncommon and does not obviously impair life-expectancy.