1 Jul 2015Article
Natural history, diagnosis, treatment and outcome of thyroid microcarcinoma (TMC) A mono-institutional 5 year experience
Lorenzo Libero 1Antonio Varricchio 2Fiorenza Manetta 1Giancarlo Candela 1Carlo Iannace 3Valerio Sciascia 1Ernesto Tartaglia 1Michela Schettino 4Luigi Santini 1
Affiliations
Article Info
1 VII Divisione di Chirurgia Generale. Seconda Università degli Studi di Napoli (SUN), Napoli, Italy
2 AOU Federico II, Chirurgia Generale, Oncologica, Laparoscopica e Videoassistita, Napoli, Italy
3 UO Chirurgia Generale AORN “San Giuseppe Moscati” Avellino, Italy
4 La Sapienza” Università degli studi di Roma, Roma, Italy
Ann. Ital. Chir., 2015, 86(4), 307-311;
Published: 1 Jul 2015
Copyright © 2015 Annali Italiani di Chirurgia
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Abstract
Thyroid microcarcinoma (TMC) it’s a rare type of differentiated thyroid cancer, which according to the World Health Organization measures 10 mm or less. Accounting 7-16 % of all thyroid carcinomas, it occurs at any age, more frequently in men, with a female to male ratio of 1:3. More frequently histotype is the papillary subset, PTCM. Aim of this study is to retrospectively evaluate the patients diagnosed with TMC in terms of their clinical and histopathological features. In our institution we collected 23 cases of TMC sampled on 338 plongeant being operated. All the tumors, in our study, were found incidentally during the treatment of benign thyroid diseases. All the sample were analyzed and prepared using the same frozen section technique. Surgical pathology identified 11 papillary microcarcinomas, 10 follicular microcarinomas, 1 oncocytary microcarcinomas and in 1 patient was found only a focal tireocitary transformation. TMC’s prognosis and treatment is still a subject of controversy. We propose our approch consisting in total thyroidectomy (less than 5 gr residual thyroid tissue), being considered the low rate of post-operative complications, and recurrences: all patients are disease-free at the median follow-up of 78 months (range 96 to 30 months). We have considered either the less malignancy habit of this neoplasia either its well prognosis.
Keywords
- Microcarcinoma
- Multinodular goiter
- Thyroidectomy