Surgical approaches in thyroid cancer and lymph-node metastases.

Authors: Dralle H, Machens A
Thyroid cancer collectively encompasses a variety of tumors of disparate morphology and biology. With the exception of radio-iodine therapy for iodine-concentrating well-differentiated thyroid cancers, surgery is the foremost and generally sole effective treatment. Because the growth patterns of these tumors vary tremendously, there is a need to tailor the extent of dissection to the respective tumor entity, especially for less aggressive tumors. No international consensus exists about what precisely constitutes a 'low-risk' or 'high-risk' tumor. Established indications for less-than-total thyroidectomy include small (</=1cm), unifocal, and non-metastatic papillary thyroid carcinomas (PTC), and minimally invasive follicular thyroid carcinomas (FTC; invas... MedWorm Sponsored Message: Find out how you can get your message across here by sponsoring this MedWorm news feed.