Recurrent Thyroid Tumors
Whether recurrent thyroid tumors always require surgical treatment is a question without a firm answer, but two experts in the field offered their views during the session.
Ralph Tufano, MD, director of the Johns Hopkins Hospital Multidisciplinary Thyroid Tumor Center in Baltimore, supported a more aggressive approach. The medical literature, he said, shows that in cases where the physician knows there is disease in the central neck or the lateral neck upon initial presentation—disease that’s “clinically apparent”—the median recurrence rate is 22%, a figure he calls “almost shameful” to surgeons.
“The onus is on the surgeon to clear that disease whether it is primary or recurrent/persistent and not rely on radioactive iodine or additional treatment,” Dr. Tufano said. “What’s important is to perform comprehensive compartmental dissections when you know gross nodal disease is there.”
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