FOUR RESECTED CASES OF THYROID CANCER WITH DISTANT METASTASIS

Abstract

Differentiated thyroid cancer has a favorable prognosis, but a few patients die of distant metastasis. Such metastasis predominantly occurs in the lung and is scarcely subjected to surgical treatment. However, patients having bone metastasis sometimes are treated surgically, because bone metastasis presents a slow growing biological feature. This paper presents four patients with thyroid cancer whose distant metastatic lesions successfully resected in the hospital since 1985. Mean age of the patients was 65 years, consisting of three women and a man. Resected metastases were located in the bone in two cases, in bone and kidney in one case, and in the brain in one case. The purpose of the operation for distant metastases was to prevent brain damage in two cases and pathological fracture in the two other cases. Pathological diagnosis of the primary thyroid cancer was made as follicular cancer in three cases and papillary cancer in one. All four patients are living well despite other distant metastases. If the lesion(s) of the distant metastasis would be deemed resectable without difficulty, surgical treatment should be chosen at first.