A Rare Presentation of Recurrent Papillary Thyroid Carcinoma with Long Survival; a Case Report

Document Type : Case report

Authors

1 Associate Professor of Endocrinology, Metabolic Syndrome Research Center, Mashhad University of Medical Sciences, Mashhad, Iran.

2 Professor of Thoracic Surgery, Mashhad University of Medical Sciences, Mashhad, Iran.

3 Medical Student, Student Research Committee, Mashhad University of Medical Sciences, Mashhad, Iran.

Abstract

Thyroid neoplasms are the most common endocrine tumors. Thyroid cancers have multiple pathological variants including papillary, follicular, anaplastic and medullary. Papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC) is the most common thyroid tumor. PTC usually presents with a thyroid nodule; it comes to clinical attention in early stages during routine physical examinations or as an accidental finding in imaging studies.
Screening programs results in detection of small PTCs in early stage of disease, therefore the prognosis is quite good, and only 20 percent of patients experience recurrence of the disease after surgery. PTC has different pathological kinds, which hobnail, tall cell and columnar cell have rapid growth and poor prognosis.
Here, we report an 84- year- old woman who had papillary thyroid cancer (PTC) since 32 years ago. She had two previous thyroid surgery and was treated with radioactive iodine (RAI) and was on levothyroxine replacement. she came to endocrine clinic with recurrence of papillary thyroid cancer (PTC) that was presented with extremely huge anterior neck mass which caused difficulty in breathing and eating. The patient undergone a third surgery, which was life-saving and discharged from hospital in good general condition.
This shows that PTC may have a natural course of recurrence that grows slowly. These patients may have long survival and proper repeated surgical intervention can be a life-saving approach.

Keywords

Main Subjects

medical journal of mashhad university of medical sciences
Volume 67, Issue 5 - Serial Number 5
September and October 2024

Files

Share

How to cite

Statistics