PAPILLARY THYROID-CARCINOMA IN KANAZAWA, JAPAN - PROGNOSTIC-SIGNIFICANCE OF HISTOLOGICAL SUBTYPES

A retrospective analysis of 183 papillary thyroid carcinomas was made in order to assess the prognostic factors related to survival. The fol lowing factors were found to adversely affect the prognosis: trabecula r subtype of papillary carcinoma, the extent of the primary tumour, re gional lymph node involvement, the presence of distant metastases, old age, male sex and the extent of the neck dissection. The presence of the follicular variant of papillary carcinoma and the extent of the th yroidectomy did not influence the prognosis. The trabecular subtype of papillary carcinoma is characterized by a trabecular or solid arrange ment of follicular cells with nuclei of ground-glass appearance. Univa riate and multivariate analysis indicated that patients with this type of thyroid tumour had a poorer prognosis than those with the well-dif ferentiated or follicular variants of papillary carcinoma. In our opin ion the trabecular subtype of papillary carcinoma should be included a s a separate entity in the WHO classification of thyroid tumours.