Clinical Significance of Multinodularity in Patients with Papillary Thyroid Carcinoma.
Backgroud/Aim: To assess the clinical significance of nodules in multinodular thyroid if one nodule is diagnosed as papillary carcinoma (PC), we investigated 97 patients with a multinodular thyroid and histopathological diagnosis of PC.


METHODS
We assessed the following variables: age and gender, fine-needle aspiration diagnosis, PC nodule size and dominance, intraglandular dissemination (ID), regional lymph node (RLN) status, and distribution of diagnoses of the other nodules.


RESULTS
Among 97 patients with PC, additional diagnoses were: nodular goiter (NG) in 64 patients, ID in 28, Hashimoto's thyroiditis (HT) in 26, and follicular or Hürthle cell adenoma in seven.


CONCLUSIONS
Patients with ID, and without NG or HT more often had RLN metastases. Lower rates of RLN metastases in patients with NG and HT are probably due to smaller PC nodule sizes found during routine follow-up of these benign diseases.
Department of Oncology and Nuclear Medicine, Sestre Milosrdnice University Hospital Centre, Zagreb, Croatia davor.kust@gmail.com.
Davor
D
Kust
Department of Oncology and Nuclear Medicine, Sestre Milosrdnice University Hospital Centre, Zagreb, Croatia.
Neven
N
Mateša
Department of Oncology and Nuclear Medicine, Sestre Milosrdnice University Hospital Centre, Zagreb, Croatia.
Zvonko
Z
Kusić
D000236:Adenoma / Q000473:pathology* / Q000601:surgery; D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D044963:Biopsy, Fine-Needle; D002291:Carcinoma, Papillary / Q000473:pathology* / Q000601:surgery; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006044:Goiter, Nodular / Q000473:pathology* / Q000601:surgery; D050031:Hashimoto Disease / Q000473:pathology* / Q000601:surgery; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009367:Neoplasm Staging; D011379:Prognosis; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D013964:Thyroid Neoplasms / Q000473:pathology* / Q000601:surgery; D016606:Thyroid Nodule / Q000473:pathology* / Q000601:surgery; D055815:Young Adult
Hashimoto's thyroiditis; Thyroid cancer; intraglandular dissemination; multinodular thyroid; nodular goitre; papillary carcinoma