The occurrence of thyroid cancer in Graves' disease was thought to be rare in the past, but recent reports and literatures suggest that the two diseases have some close relationship and patients with Graves'disease have high possibility of
occurence of
thyroid carcinomas.
In order to clarify these findings, we retrospectively analyzed one hundred patients with Graves' disease who were undertaken subtotal thyroidectomies during the past 6 years from January, 1985 to December, 1990.
The incidence of thyroid cancer in Graves' disease was 7.0%(7 cases in 100 patients), including 3 cases found on postoperative histologic examinations, one case found during operation by frozed section of suspicious lymph nodes, and three cases
preoperatively confirmed by cytology and/or biopsy, to be thyroid cancer with or without lymph node metastasis. The patients were all female and the age distributed from 21 to 56(mean=35.9). Postoperative histologic examination revealed that all
the
cases were papillary carcinomas. Tumor sizes in 4 cases in which hyperthyroidism was not properly controlled were 0.1 to 0.3 cm in diameter and those in 3 cases with normal thyroid function were 2.5 to 4 cm in diameter.
There were 2 cases which had metastasis to regional lymph nodes. Neither recurrences nor mortalities have been observed for the past 6 ears.
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