[Critical remarks on medullary cancer of the thyroid]

Medullary carcinoma of the thyroid (MCT) is a rather uncommon neoplasia that must be correctly identified to allow a proper therapy. The Authors on the basis of their own series consisting of 223 surgically treated tumors of the thyroid, report 4 cases of MCT. In none of these cases the diagnosis was made before surgery. It is therefore stressed, to achieve an early diagnosis, the usefulness of the careful appraisal of the clinical data and of the complete biochemical and histo-pathological evaluation of each suspicious case. Such a policy allows to exclude all possibility of doubt.