Metastasis to the thyroid gland : A report of 43 cases

✍ Scribed by Manoochehr K. Nakhjavani; Hossein Gharib; John R. Goellner; Jon A. van Heerden

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1997
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 69 KB
• Volume: 79
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0008-543X
• DOI: 10.1002/(sici)1097-0142(19970201)79:3<574::aid-cncr21>3.0.co;2-#

✦ Synopsis

METHODS.

Forty-three patients with metastasis to the thyroid gland were studied ternal Medicine, Mayo Clinic and Mayo Foundaretrospectively. Primary tumor origin was identified in all but two cases. Metastasis tion, Rochester, Minnesota.

to the thyroid gland was confirmed by fine-needle aspiration cytology or histology. 2 Division of Endocrinology/Metabolism and In-Data were analyzed for the frequency and types of malignant lesions, the clinical ternal Medicine, Mayo Clinic and Mayo Foundacourse of disease, and the prognosis after thyroid involvement. tion, Rochester, Minnesota.

RESULTS.

The kidney was the most common primary tumor site (33%), followed 3 Division of Anatomic Pathology, Mayo Clinic by lung (16%), breast (16%), esophagus (9%), and uterus (7%). The time from and Mayo Foundation, Rochester, Minnesota.

diagnosis of the primary tumor to metastasis to the thyroid gland was considerable for renal cell adenocarcinoma (mean, 106 months) and for adenocarcinomas of 4 Division of Gastroenterologic and General Surgery, Mayo Clinic and Mayo Foundation, Rochthe breast (mean, 131 months) and uterus (mean, 132 months). In 12 patients, ester, Minnesota.

this interval was more than 120 months. Fine-needle aspiration cytology detected metastatic malignancy in 29 of 30 patients. Treatment involved surgery alone, surgery with adjuvant therapy, or nonsurgical methods. Two patients with uterine adenocarcinoma and one with breast adenocarcinoma had disease regression with no evidence of tumor recurrence.

CONCLUSIONS.

In any patient with a previous history of malignancy, no matter how remote that history is, a new thyroid mass should be considered recurrent malignancy until proved otherwise. Although detection of metastasis to the thyroid gland often indicates poor prognosis, aggressive surgical and medical therapy may be effective in a small percentage of patients.