[Thyroid gland involvement in cancer of the larynx]

Numerous diseases that require surgical treatment often occur in the thyroid, one of the most important organs in the neck. An example of such pathologies are benign and malignant neoplasms. It is still not well known, however, if certain secondary malignant neoplasms may also arise there. While this pathology is relatively frequent, and often asymptomatic, the incidence of secondary lesions observed clinically in the thyroid is much lower than that found in series based on necroscopy. The thyroid may be involved by metastatic spreading of systemic malignant neoplasms (of the kidney, breasts, lung, colon, rectum, etc.) or by direct extension of laryngeal, hypopharyngeal or esophageal cancer, the latter being more frequent. In this paper the Authors report their experience with regard to the incidence of tumorous involvement of the thyroid in 23 patients (22 of which were males between the ages of 48 and 69--average age, 65) under observation for laryngeal cancer from 1986 to 1990. All the patients had an epidermoid carcinoma of the larynx that, due to its location and size, required a hemithyroidectomy or an isthmectomy associated with laryngectomy (20 total laryngectomies with hemithyroidectomies and 3 subtotal laryngectomies with isthmectomy). Upon pathologic examination, 7 thyroid specimens (30%) revealed tumorous involvement of the thyroid and in those cases of males who had undergone total laryngectomy with hemithyroidectomy, thyroid involvement was found. In 5 cases, tumorous involvement was immediately evident upon microscopic examination (1 case of solitary tumor metastasis and 4 of direct extension).(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)