Follicular and Hurthle cell tumors of the thyroid gland. Possibilities of preoperative differential diagnosis

摘要

Changes suspicious for malignancy were detected in 127 patients who, according to scintigraphic examination of the thyroid, had "cold" nodules. As a consequence, all the patients were operated on and fine-needle aspiration findings were compared with the histological results. Thyroid cancer was identified in 18.9%. No differences in age between cases of benign, malignant follicular and Hurthle cell tumors were reported. Mean nodule size in patients with follicular and Hurthle cell adenoma (2.5 +/- 1.21 cm) differed from that in patients with thyroid cancer (3.35 +/- 1.86, p < 0.001). No differences in nodule size were observed in cases of micro-macrofollicular colloid goiter and thyroid cancer. The frequency of the latter was higher in Hurthle cell tumor (10 out of 23, 43.58%) than in thyroid tumor (14 out of 104, 13.56%), p = 0.002. Risk for thyroid cancer detection was higher in patients revealing nuclear atypia (10 out of 14 thyroid cancer patients, 71.4%) as compared with as low as 20 out of 79 adenoma patients, 25.32% (p = 0.03).