[Morphological characteristics of the stroma of thyroid cancer]

The stroma of the papillary and follicular thyroid carcinoma was studied histochemically, morphometrically and electron microscopically. The functionally active vascular bed was found to have a greater length in the papillary carcinoma as compared to the follicular one. Likewise the cell infiltration and the number of fibroblasts with a high dehydrogenase activity were more pronounced in the papillary carcinoma. It is believed that these properties of the stroma are connected with the function of parenchymatous carcinoma cells.