ABSTRACT

To determine the frequency of distant metastases appearance in relation to pathohistologic types of differentitated thyroid carcinomas and investigate the influence of pathohistologic types on the outcome of patients with metastases. The 65 follicular and 254 papillary carcinomas were observed and treated. Metastases were detected in 32.3% patients with follicular and in 12.6% with papillary carcinomas; the difference was highly significant (p<0.001). The mean age of patients with metastases at the moment of diagnosing thyroid malignancy was significantly higher in follicular carcinomas (p<0.01).
The lung metastases were significantly more frequent in papillary (p<0.001) and bone metastases in follicular carcinomas (p<0.001); the other systems were involved rarely in both types of carcinoma. The female and male ratio was not significantly different between metastatic papillary and follicular carcinomas (p>0.2). The general outcome (remission, stable disease, deterioration, death) was significantly better in patients with metastatic papillary carcinomas (p<0.05), particularly with regard to get remissions, but the cumulative survival up to 10 years between papillary and follicular carcinomas with metastases was not significantly different (p>0.4), although papillary carcinomas had the tendency of longer survival. The metastases of follicular carcinomas were significantly more frequent. The bone metastases were more frequent in follicular and lung metastases in papillary carcinomas.
The general outcome of metastatic papillary carcinomas comparing to follicular carcinomas was significantly better, but the difference was not significant with regard to the survival.

Keywords: Thyroid gland, differentiated carcinoma, metastasis, frequency, outcome

Correspondence to:
Prof.dr sc. med. Ljubomir Stefanovic,Ph,D.,MD
Institute of Oncology, Department of Nuclear Medicine
Institutski put 4,
21204,Sremska Kamenica, Yugoslavia