Abstract
Intra-arterial chemotherapy combined with external irradiation was performed on 5 cases of advanced inopeable thyroid cancers. The chemothcerapy was administrared through the superior thyroid artery, and 5-FU was employed as the chemotherapy agent in all cases. Two of those cases have servived for more than 5 years since the application of the treatment. Although of the respiratorytract caused by the invasion of thyroid cancer to the trachea with radiotherapy alone, in some limited cases, hovever, combined therapy using intra-arterial chemotherapy and external irradiation can be benificial cases of stenosis of the respiratorytract. Autopsy findings in 2 of the cases sited above revealed the changing of the histopathological structure at the time of initial treatment and autopsy. It was diagnosed as well differentiated papillary adenocarcinoma which changed to poorly differentiated adenocarcinoma by the time of the autopsies. It seems that this is one of the charactaristics of advanced thyroid cancer.
