[The relationship between the pathological characteristics and the prognosis of thyroid carcinoma]

Two hundred and thirty-three cases of thyroid carcinoma have been analysed by pathology. All cases were followed up more than 5 years after operation. A systematic investigation on the size of tumors, histological types, tumor cell differentiation, tumor cell infiltration, metastasis in lymph nodes and the interstitial reaction was carried out. The results showed that the survival rate of patients was closely related to the size of tumor. In regard to the histological types, the papillary carcinoma was more favourable in prognosis, and the 5, 10 and 15 year survival rates were much better than those of follicular carcinoma. In the medullary carcinoma and anaplastic carcinoma, there was no patient surviving over 10 years. According to the cell differentiation, the papillary and follicular carcinomas were divided into three grades: grade I (well differentiation), grade II (moderate differentiation) and grade III (poor differentiation). In the papillary carcinoma, the survival of the patients seems to be related to the cell differentiation but without statistical significance. However, in follicular carcinoma of the thyroid, the 5, 10 and 15 year survival rates were closely related to the differentiation of cancer cells. Other factors did not show significance in the prognosis, probably because of a too small number of cases in this group.