Two tumors of the same cytological origin: are they two different tumors or a differentiation of one to another?

Abstract

BACKGROUND: In this study, we aimed to evaluate patients who had follicular adenoma detected in the pathologic examination of total thyroidectomy operations performed within 5 years and to investigate the relation between follicular adenoma and papillary carcinoma which are two different diseases developed from the same cytologic origin. METHODS: The data of 107 patients diagnosed with follicular adenoma among 1331 patients who underwent bilateral total thyroidectomy due to multinodular goiter diagnosis between January 2008 and January 2013 were analyzed retrospectively. RESULTS: 82.2% of the patients were female, mean age was 51.04 +/- 13.01(19-83). It was found that patients with follicular adenoma were more likely to have incidental papillary thyroid cancer and 21 (61.7%) patients with follicular adenoma-papillary thyroid carcinoma together had in the contralateral thyroid lobe. CONCLUSIONS: We determined that incidental papillary thyroid cancer risk was significantly higher in follicular adenoma cases with multinodular goiter. Therefore, we think that bilateral total thyroidectomy should be preferred in multinodular goiter cases with preoperative fine needle aspiration cytology of follicular neoplasia.