THE MALIGNANCY INCEDENCE IN HYPERTHYROIDIC PATIENTS TREATED BY SURGERY

Abstract

Until fairly recently, coincedence of hyperthyroidism and malignancy has been thought to be low. In this study, da-tas of 195 patients who have undergone thyroidectomy for hyperthyroidism were evaluated to calculate the coincedence of hyperthyroidism and malignancy and to evaluate diagnostic and therapeutic treatment strategies.

Between January-1995 and September-2001, in Uludag University Medical Faculty, Department of General Surgery, 543 patients underwent thyroidectomies. Among these the charts of 195 that had hyperthyroidism were evaluated retrospectively.

Of the 195 hyperthyroidic patients, 11 patients had thyroid cancer. All of them were women. Histopathological dist-rubition of these 11 malignant tumors were; 9 papillary carcinomas, 1 medullary carcinoma and 1 follicular carcinoma. In our institution the incidence of malignancy associated with hyperthyroidism was identified as 5.6%. The significantly high incidence of associated malignancy in hyperthyroid cases should be taken into consideration while evaluating treatment strategies. For this reason we suggest that total thyroidectomy may be considered as a treatment option in selected hyperthyroid cases if any doubt remains.