Incidence of metastatic well-differentiated thyroid cancer in cervical lymph nodes |
| |
Authors: | Wang Tracy S Dubner Sanford Sznyter Laura A Heller Keith S |
| |
Institution: | Section of Head and Neck Surgery, Department of Surgery, Long Island Jewish Medical Center, The Long Island Campus of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, New Hyde Park, NY, USA. |
| |
Abstract: | OBJECTIVE: To determine the incidence of clinically positive lateral cervical nodes at presentation and after initial treatment in patients with well-differentiated thyroid cancer. DESIGN: Retrospective chart review. SETTING: University-affiliated teaching hospitals. PATIENTS: A total of 508 patients who underwent a thyroidectomy as part of their initial treatment for well-differentiated thyroid carcinoma between January 1978 and December 1999. Neck dissections were performed only for clinically palpable cervical nodes. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Recurrence in the neck and survival. RESULTS: Forty-four patients (9%) had palpable lateral cervical lymph nodes at the time of surgery. All 31 patients younger than 45 years presenting with palpable positive nodes are alive and free of disease; 4 of 13 patients 45 years or older have died of thyroid cancer. Only 16 (3%) of 464 patients who did not undergo initial neck dissection had recurrence in lateral cervical nodes. Recurrence is more likely when the initial tumor is larger than 4 cm. In 216 patients younger than 45 years, there were 5 (2%) recurrences in lateral cervical nodes; these patients remain alive and free of disease. In 248 patients 45 years or older, there were 11 (4%) with recurrent disease in the lateral neck; 4 of these patients have died of thyroid cancer. CONCLUSIONS: An aggressive approach to detecting and treating occult lateral cervical nodes by techniques such as jugular node sampling, sentinel node biopsy, or image-guided needle biopsy is not necessary in most patients. Attempts to detect and remove occult lateral cervical lymph node metastases might be considered in older patients with large primary tumors. |
| |
Keywords: | |
本文献已被 PubMed 等数据库收录! |
|