One hundred and forty seven case of thyroid cancer among 325 histologically verified thyroid diseases during the period of 11 year (1961?1971) were clinically analyzed to clarify certain characteristics among Koreans.
1. Out of the 147 thyroid cancers, papillary cancer comprised 67.5%, follicular cancer 24.3%, mixed type 6.1%, and anaplastic cancer 2%.
2. The overall sex ratio of male and female in thyroid cancer was 1:2.7. The rate is 1:2.4 papillary cancer, 1:3.0 in follicular cancer, and 1:2.0 in anaplastic cancer.
3. The mean age of thyroid cancer patients is 41.8 years old of age. In male it is 38. 7, in female it is 41.3 years old of age. The mean age for papillary cancer is 41.6, follicular cancer 38.3, anaplastic cancer 46, and mixed type 43.3 years old of age.
4. Duration of goiter was 5.5 years in papillary cancer, 11.5 years in follicular cancer, and 16 years in mixed type.
5.The size of tumor varied from peanut to child-head size. Hen egg size was most common. Tenderness was negative in more than 70% of cases. Consistency was firm or hard in the most of the cases. Fixation of the tumor was noticed in about 20% of the cases.
6. 89% of thyroid cancer patients showed goiter, the frequency of other symptoms manifested is in order of palpitation, dysphasia, perspiration, weight loss, dyspnea, weakness, and anorexia. Thyroid function was studied in 68 cases and hyperthyroidism was noticed in 2 cases (3%), hypothyroidism in 11 cases (16.4%), and euthyroidism in 54 cases (80.6%)
7. Metastasis of thyroid cancer found in 45.6% of total thyroid cancer. The most common site was regional neck lymphnode (32.5%), lung, and bone in order. The invasion to adjacent neck muscle was noticed in 11.8% of all cases.
8. Preoperative impression was charted in 73 cases of thyroid cancer. The preoperative impression was given thyroid cancer in 46.5%, benign tumor in 43.8% and malignancy of other origin in 9.7% of the 73 cases.
9. The clinical impression was, given in criteria other than benign or malignancy 127 cases such as nontoxic nodular goiter, cyst, thyroglossal cyst, diffuse nontoxic goiter, nodular toxic goiter. Thyroid cancer was diagnosed in 33 cases (26. %) out of the 127 cases. Among them, 26 cases (27.1%) out of 96 cases which clinically classified as nontoxic nodular goiter were pathologically proved thyroid cancer in cases of clinically suspected malignancy, 5 cases (14.7%)were pathologically proved benign.
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