This paper represents a clinical study of 170 cases of thyroid disease which were treated surgically at Doug San Presbyterian Medical Center, Taegu, Korea, during past 5 years from Jan. 1, 1972 to Dec.- 31, 1976 with special emphasis on the sites of metastases of 30 cases of thyroid cancer.
And we reviewed the literatures for the thyroid cancer with sites of cervical and distant
metastases, management and prognosis according to the extent of metastases.
The results obtained in this study are summarized as follows.
1. Of, 107 cases, 30 cases (28.0%) were malignant and 77 cases (72.0%) were benign. 2. Thyroid diseases are predominant in females (93.5%).
3. Thyroid cancer was prevalent in forth to sixth decades of life (72.6% of the cases of malignancy) and benign thyroid disease was prevalent in third to fifth decades of life´ (81; 8% of the cases of benignancy):
4. The chief clinical features are a mass or masses in thyroid and/or neck, palpable cervical lymph nodes and hoarseness in malignancy, and a mass or masses in thyroid, ´palpitation; and fatigability in benignancy.
5. The main site of origin was the right lobe (43%).
6. The incidence of cancer was 25.9% (22 Out of 85 cases) in solitary nodules and 38.1 % (8 out of 21 cases) in multiple nodules.
7. Cervical lymph node metastases were present in 15 cases (50%) and were most common in papillary adenocarcinomas (10 cases).
Distant metastases were present in 10 cases and were most common in follicular adenocarcinomas(5 cases).
The sites of distant metastases were bone (4 cases), lung (3 cases), soft tissue (3 cases),
axillary lymph node (I case) and ovary (1 case) in order of descending frequency.
8. The most common post-operative complication was transient hoarseness (4 cases).
9. Post-operative thyroid hormone therapy (17 cases) and external radiation (5 cases) showed temporary palliation.
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