Follicular carcinoma deserves a careful preoperative evaluation and multidisciplinary therapy planning. Needle aspiration may be of less value than for other thyroid lesions. If the surgeon is suspicious of a carcinoma, a total lobectomy of the involved side and frozen section may be indicated. Lobectomy with or without isthmusectomy seems to be the minimal treatment for tumors confined to the lobe without nodal metastases. Total thyroidectomy is reserved for patients at high risk by nature of age, large lesions, angioinvasion, capsular invasion, or known metastatic disease where subsequent I-131 therapy is considered likely. I-131 scanning for metastatic disease is indicated in these high-risk patients. I-131 therapy is very valuable for treatment of metastatic disease; and in patients presenting with metastatic disease, total thyroidectomy may be indicated to maximize the therapeutic benefit of the I-131. Judicious planning and care of these patients can result in a 50 to 70% total cure and as high as 85% long-term survival.

Adenocarcinoma↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Inherited syndromes of colon polyps.

Recognition of the mendelian dominant inherited syndrome of familial polyposis coli in the 1930s has been followed by the recognition of many inherited colonic polyposis syndromes. The recognition of different histological types of colon polyps was associated by the gradual recognition that some, such as the hamartomatous polyps, do not progress into adenocarcinoma, and others, such as various adenomas have a greater or lesser propensity to eventually give rise to invasive cancer. As the host of inherited syndromes expanded and were more widely recognized, additional inherited characteristics became apparent: such tumors as breast and thyroid associated with Cowden's syndrome, ovarian cysts and sex cord tumors with Peutz-Jeghers syndrome, and, of course, the soft tissue, bony tumors, ampullary cancers, and fibroadenomas associated with Gardner's syndrome. In recent years, genetic markers for the various syndromes have been studied, and in some cases confirmed. This whole field is rapidly developing and is briefly covered. All the steps and influencing factors in cancer development are shown in one phase or another of the polyp-cancer sequence in these inherited syndromes.

Colonic Polyps↗

PubMedDate not supplied