[Diagnosis and therapy of differentiated thyroid cancer]

Summing up, we can state the following: Diagnosis of thyroid cancer seems easy, since the organ lies immediately beneath the skin, so that tumour growth could be readily detected, and also since thyroglobulin (tg) is an ideal and well-tried tumour marker. Nevertheless, malignant thyroid nodes are still frequently misinterpreted as benign, as benign strumae occur quite often. In view of the fact that malignant follicular carcinomas have a tendency to produce metastases via the bloodstream, in all tumours larger than 1 cm to 1.5 cm no change should be made in the classical therapeutic approach (total thyroidectomy, radioiodine therapy and levothyroxine suppression therapy), whereas in so-called occult papillary thyroid cancer (i.e. carcinomas smaller than 1-1.5 cm) hemithyroidectomy and lifelong suppression therapy can be satisfactory. It follows from this that in view of the low complication rate even with maximal therapy of differentiated thyroid cancer and the advantages resulting therefrom for follow-up care, the total ablation therapy should be retained as standard treatment. The low incidence of thyroid cancer justifies, inter alia, central follow-up care, the more so since this is usually performed on an interdisciplinary basis and there is as yet no standardised procedure for thyroglobulin determination.