[Early recognition of C-cell carcinoma by family screening (author's transl)].
All available family members of five patients with C-cell carcinoma (medullary carcinoma of the thyroid) were tested for their basal serum-calcitonin level and after pentagastrin stimulation. In two females, aged 12 and 25 years, from two different families, serum-calcitonin was elevated, but only after repeated tests or after pentagastrin stimulation, to definitely abnormal levels. Neither had palpable thyroid nodules, lymph-adenopathy or diarrhoea. The thyroid scan was normal and there were no storage defects. But because of the family history and the elevated serum-calcitonin levels total thyroidectomy was performed in both. The specimens revealed multicentric, bilateral C-cell carcinomas. The serum-calcitonin concentration became completely normal postoperatively, so that one may justifiably speak of a curative effect of the thyroidectomy in these two instances of early diagnosis.
D000328:Adult; D002116:Calcitonin / Q000097:blood; D002277:Carcinoma / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000235:genetics / Q000473:pathology; D002648:Child; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D010418:Pentagastrin; D013964:Thyroid Neoplasms / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000235:genetics / Q000473:pathology; D013965:Thyroidectomy
D002116:Calcitonin; D010418:Pentagastrin
Früherkennung des C-Zell-Karzinoms durch Familien-Screening.