Informing & Supporting Thyroid Patients Since 1985
Informing & Supporting Thyroid Patients Since 1985
Thyroid Research 
Thyroid Research Archive Thyroid Cancer
(March 2007)
The background of the study. Most patients with a papillary cancer are treated by thyroidectomy, one reason being that the opposite thyroid lobe may contain one or more foci of cancer. However, some patients are treated by thyroid lobectomy if the probability that the nodule is a cancer is low. If the nodule proves to be a papillary cancer, or there is another nodule that is a papillary cancer, completion thyroidectomy is advised. This report describes an analysis of 150 patients who underwent completion thyroidectomy to determine the frequency and the factors associated with papillary cancer in the opposite lobe.
How the study was done. The study subjects were 150 patients who had undergone thyroid lobectomy for a nodule that proved to be a papillary cancer. They underwent completion thyroidectomy three months later, and then were treated with radioiodine.
The results of the study. Sixty-two of the 150 patients (41 percent) had a papillary cancer in the opposite lobe and 88 (59 percent) did not. There were no differences in the proportions of women and men, age, or interval between the initial thyroid lobectomy and the completion thyroidectomy in the two groups. Similarly, there were no differences in the size of the primary tumor or the initial pathological findings in the two groups.
During follow-up (up to 20 years), 4 of the 62 patients with cancer in the opposite lobe (6 percent) had a recurrence, as compared with 2 of the 88 patients with no cancer in the opposite lobe (2 percent).
The conclusions of the study. A substantial proportion of patients with papillary cancer have cancer in the opposite thyroid lobe. These patients cannot be distinguished from those who do not have cancer in the contralateral lobe, and the recurrence rates in the two groups are similar.
The original article. Grigsby PW, Reddy RM, Moley JF, Hall BL. Contralateral papillary thyroid cancer at completion thyroidectomy has no impact on recurrence or survival after radioiodine treatment. Surgery 2006;140:1043-9.
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