Yoshio Kure

Metastases to the regional lymph nodes, lymph node recurrence, and distant metastases in nonadvanced papillary thyroid carcinoma

To investigate the biological characteristics of papillary thyroid carcinoma from the perspectives of lymph node metastasis, lymph node recurrence, and distant metastasis, 746 patients with nonadvanced papillary thyroid carcinoma were retrospectively studied. There were 76 men and 670 women with a mean age of 42.7 years. The rate of lymph node metastasis was significantly higher in young patients (aged less than 30 years). Lymph node recurrence was observed in 80 patients and distant metastasis in 13, being seen with significant frequency in the young and elderly (aged over 50 years) patients and in the men. The frequency of distant metastasis was significantly greater in the elderly patients and in those with lymph node recurrence. These findings indicate that the role of regional lymph nodes and the clinical meaning of lymph node recurrence differ between young and elderly patients.

Surgical treatment of locally advanced thyroid cancer

Eighty-four patients with locally advanced thyroid cancer treated during the period from 1965 to 1989 were studied in order to evaluate the appropriateness of radical surgery. There were 57 patients who underwent palliative surgery (palliative group) and 27 patients who underwent radical surgery (radical group). Forty-six of the patients in the palliative group and all 27 in the radical group were aged 40 years or more. The survival rates as analyzed by the Kaplan-Meier method revealed no significant difference between patients aged 40 or more in the palliative group and those in the radical group. The control of local disease, however, was much more difficult in the palliative group. From the view of survival rates, the superiority of radical surgery could not be demonstrated, but radical surgery did control local neck disease better. In the palliative group, the survival rate of patients aged under 40 was significantly better than that of patients aged 40 or more. It may thus be better to avoid radical surgery in patients under 40 if it would result in a severe deterioration in their quality of life.