[Gardner syndrome and thyroid gland carcinoma]

We report on the case of a 23-year-old female with a 5-year history of Gardner's syndrome, who developed a bifocal, papillary carcinoma of the thyroid. The combination of familial adenomatous polyposis with a thyroid cancer is a rare but well-documented association. Typically, histology reveals a multifocal, papillary tumour with a predominantly good prognosis. This type of carcinoma is almost exclusively confined to females in their second decade of life, and it may, in fact, precede the onset of the polyposis manifestation. Patients suffering from familial adenomatous polyposis should therefore undergo regular clinical examination of the thyroid gland. If a neoplastic lesion is suspected, immediate scintigraphic evaluation should be carried out, with fine-needle aspiration of equivocal foci if necessary, and/or intraoperative frozen section. When a carcinoma is found, total thyroidectomy with dissection of the central lymph compartments should be considered the treatment of choice because of the high likelihood of the tumour being multicentric.