PAPILLARY THYROID-CARCINOMA - CORRELATIONS BETWEEN PROGNOSIS, AGE, AND CLINICOPATHOLOGICAL AND HISTOMORPHOLOGICAL FINDINGS

The age influence on the prognosis of papillary thyroid carcinoma was analyzed in a group of 67 patients. A marked decline in cause-specific survival was found for patients older than 60 years of age at the tim e of diagnosis. In order to find a tumor-biological explanation of the prognostic difference between patients below and above 60 years of ag e, several clinicopathological and histomorphological features were an alyzed. Tumors from patients older than 60 years of age showed signifi cantly more mitotic activity and nuclear polymorphism, fewer psammoma bodies, and more frequent extrathyroidal invasion and distant metastas es. The results indicate that 60 years of age the time of diagnosis ma y be the ''prognostic break-point'' for papillary thyroid carcinoma.