Prognostic factors in follicular carcinoma of the thyroid: A study of 198 cases

✍ Scribed by Raja S. Rao; Hemen K. Parikh; Vinay H. Deshmane; Deepak M. Parikh; Sumati S. Shrikhande; Rohini Havaldar

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1996
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 594 KB
• Volume: 18
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1043-3074
• DOI: 10.1002/(sici)1097-0347(199603/04)18:2<118::aid-hed2>3.0.co;2-4

✦ Synopsis

Background:

Prognostic parameters for papillary carcinoma of the thyroid have been defined by several groups. however, no such study has been reported for follicular carcinoma.

Methods:

We undertook a retrospective study of well-differentiated carcinoma of the thyroid operated at the tata memorial hospital during the period 1970-1985. in our series, follicular carcinoma formed 48% of the well-differentiated carcinomas of the thyroid. the variables age, sex, size, extrathyroidal spread, distant metastases, and lymph node metastases were evaluated. the survival was plotted according to the kaplan-meier method, and graphs compared by log-rank test. univariate and multivariate analyses were performed.

Results:

Based on our experience we stratified the cases into low-risk and high-risk groups. the low-risk group included: age below 40 years, tumor size less than 5 cm. and no extrathyroidal extension or metastases. this low risk group had 100% survival at 15 years, compared with 40% survival for the high-risk group (p <.001). seventy-three percent (73%) of our cases were in the high-risk group.

Conclusions:

Based on our findings that the majority of our patients were in the high-risk group, we advocate a total or near-total thyroidectomy in treatment of follicular carcinoma of the thyroid. there is a need to arrive at a universally acceptable classification of risk groups in follicular carcinoma of the thyroid gland.