PARENCHYMAL FINDINGS IN THYROIDAL CARCINOMA: PATHOLOGIC STUDY OF 256 CASES*†

Abstract

In this study an attempt is made to describe the type of thyroid gland in which cancer is found. Sixty-five per cent of the 256 cancers studied occurred in otherwise non-nodular glands. The cancers were grouped in 5 categories: papillary, follicular, solid and anaplastic carcinomas and malignant lymphomas. Eight glands contained malignant lymphomas. About 90 per cent of the carcinomas in the series occurred in glands with no or minimal lympho-cytic infiltration of the parenchyma. The incidence of struma lympho-matosa was less than 1 per cent and the incidence of moderate to marked lymphocytic infiltration was about 10 per cent. Nodularity and lympho-cytic infiltration occurred in the portion of the glands exclusive of the cancers with about the same frequency as in glands obtained at necropsy and reported in other papers. Most of the 256 cancers occurred in otherwise essentially normal glands. Lymph-node metastasis was found to occur more frequently from those papillary carcinomas that were found in glands in which the parenchyma was otherwise non-nodular and free of lymphocytic infiltration than from similar carcinomas that were found in glands in which the parenchyma was nodular or infiltrated by lymphocytes.