Prognosticators of survival in differentiated thyroid carcinoma.

Differentiated carcinoma of the thyroid has good prognosis, even in patients presenting in the late stage and with distant metastasis. In India, the incidence of papillary carcinoma and follicular carcinoma are in the ratio of 60∶40. A retrospective study was carried out to determine the impact of patient and tumor factors on survival, and to develop a simple rish group staging system to predict survival in patients with differentiated thyroid carcinomas. Four hundred and seventeen (417) patients undergoing primary treatment at our hospital between 197-1985, were entered to the study. There were 198 follicular carcinomas and 219 papillary carcinomas. Impact of patient and tumor variables were studied by drawing Kaplan Meier curves and comparing them by the Chi Sq Test. Age<=40 years (p=0.00001), tumor size <5cms (p=0.01), extrrathyroidal spread (p=0.001) and distant metastasis (p=0.00001) had significant impact on survival. These finding were true for a subset analysis follicular and papillary carcinomas separately. A Cox Regression Analysis was also performed and this showed the above factors to impact significantly on survival. Basing on the regression analysis we devised a simple risk group system and classified the patients as high and low risk. Low risk group patients had a significant survival advantage. Our findings show that the incidence of follicular carcinoma is significantly high in india (48%) and that 65% of our patients are in the high risk group. Incidence of contralateral lobe disease on completion thyroidectomy is as high as 53%. Hence, a more aggressive treatment policy is warranted and total thyroidectomy is the appropriate treatment of choice in our patients.

Prognostic factors in follicular carcinoma of the thyroid: a study of 198 cases.

BACKGROUND: Prognostic parameters for papillary carcinoma of the thyroid have been defined by several groups. However, no such study has been reported for follicular carcinoma. METHODS: We undertook a retrospective study of well-differentiated carcinoma of the thyroid operated at the Tata Memorial Hospital during the period 1970-1985. In our series, follicular carcinoma formed 48% of the well-differentiated carcinomas of the thyroid. The variables age, sex, size, extrathyroidal spread, distant metastases, and lymph node metastases were evaluated. The survival was plotted according to the Kaplan-Meier method, and graphs compared by log-rank test. Univariate and multivariate analyses were performed. RESULTS: Based on our experience we stratified the cases into low-risk and high-risk groups. The low-risk group included: age below 40 years, tumor size less than 5 cm. and no extrathyroidal extension or metastases. This low risk group had 100% survival at 15 years, compared with 40% survival for the high-risk group (P <.001). Seventy-three percent (73%) of our cases were in the high-risk group. CONCLUSIONS: Based on our findings that the majority of our patients were in the high-risk group, we advocate a total or near-total thyroidectomy in treatment of follicular carcinoma of the thyroid. There is a need to arrive at a universally acceptable classification of risk groups in follicular carcinoma of the thyroid gland.

The relevance of a staging laparotomy for Hodgkin's disease in India.

A retrospective analysis of 328 cases of Hodgkin's Disease (HD) subjected to a staging laparotomy at the Tata Memorial Hospital, Bombay, India, from 1974 to 1986 was undertaken to assess its relevance to our setup. Eighty percent of the patients were from clinical stages (CS) I and II, 38% with lymphocyte predominance (LP), and 41% with mixed cellularity (MC) histologies. Staging laparotomy was positive in 60% cases overall, including 50% from CS IA and IIA, 68% from CS IB and IIB, and 53% and 67%, respectively, from LP and MC histologies. Splenic involvement was seen in 54% cases. Operative complications were encountered in 2% of cases and deaths in two cases only. In view of the high propensity for abdominal spread, only selected CS IA and IIA cases would merit a staging laparotomy within which, nearly 50% cases with a negative yield could be offered radical segmental irradiation alone for cure. The majority of our patients would, however, require combination therapy.

Secondary carcinoma of testis--a clinicopathologic study of 10 cases.

Ten cases of metastatic carcinomas to the testis are recorded in the last 17 years from Tata Memorial Hospital (TMH). There were two from kidney and four each from prostate and gastrointestinal tract carcinomas. The age of the patients ranged from 40 to 82 years with a mean of 57 years. The disease was unilateral in eight cases and bilateral in two. The testicular mass preceded the symptomatology of the primary lesion in a single case. The disease was an incidental finding in three prostatic carcinomas, where bilateral orchidectomy was performed as a therapeutic procedure. Hydrocele was associated in three cases. Grossly the tumour deposits were nodular or diffuse. Microscopically involvement of the interstitial parenchyma, with sparing of the tubular structures of the testis, epididymis and retetestis and special stains for mucin were helpful in the diagnosis. Lymphatic emboli were present in six cases and vascular emboli in three. The spermatic cord was involved in two cases.

Mucin histochemistry of the upper gastrointestinal tract.

Histochemically differentiated mucins have been studied in the mucosal lining of the esophagus and the stomach. Acid mucin was differentiated from neutral mucin by the alcian blue/PAS technique and sulphomucin by the high iron diamine/alcian blue technique. Neutral mucin secreted normally by the stomach mucosa was replaced by acid mucin in 17 of the 19 mucin secreting adenocarcinomas involving the lower third of the esophagus, and in 24 of the 28 mucin secreting gastric adenocarcinomas studied. The intestinal metaplasia (IM) seen in the gastric mucosa associated with adenocarcinoma, chronic gastric ulcer and chronic gastritis was classified according to the type of mucin secreted by the goblet cells. IM secreting sulphomucins was seen to be associated with gastric adenocarcinoma.

Mucin histochemistry of the lower gastrointestinal tract.

Variations in the mucin secretion pattern in the mucosal lining of the colon and rectum have been studied. Mucins have been differentiated histochemically as neutral mucins, sialomucins and sulphomucins, using alcian blue/PAS and HID/alcian blue techniques. In the normal colonic mucosa, the goblet cells secrete predominantly sulphomucins with small amounts of sialomucins. Twenty one cases with benign lesions showed varying patterns of mucin secretion. In the 35 cases with adenocarcinoma studied, the transitional mucosa adjacent to the lesion showed a reversal of mucin secretion pattern, with an increase in sialomucins and a marked decrease in sulphomucins, suggesting a reaction to neoplasia.

Surgical pathology of squamous carcinoma of the oral cavity: its impact on management.

Squamous carcinoma of the oral cavity is relatively common in India. The anterior tongue and buccal mucosa are the two common sites. A retrospective analysis of various histological parameters in surgically treated patients with carcinoma of the anterior tongue (57 cases) and buccal mucosa (71 cases) was undertaken to evaluate their role in prognosis and management. The main findings of this study are the strong correlation between high tumour grade, infiltrative tumour margins, perineural invasion, and tumour size greater than 2 cm and lymph node metastasis at presentation, for both groups of patients. Tumor thickness greater than 5 mm was an additional variable associated with both overt and occult nodal metastases for anterior tongue lesions. All tumours thicker than 5 mm recurred in the untreated N0 neck. Clinically palpable nodes (N1) were falsely positive in 63% of patients with T4 buccal mucosa carcinoma. Grade I histology on biopsy can be used to predict which patients will have negative lymph nodes. Patients with pathologically proven nodal metastases have a poor prognosis. However, the mode of invasion and the presence of perineural invasion in the resected specimen determines the subsequent recurrence of histologically staged N0 cases, most of whom will relapse at the primary site. The low incidence of neck node metastases even in large, buccal mucosa tumours and the virtual absence of "skip" metastases to low nodal sites has made a supraomohyoid lymph node dissection after intraoperative staging a logical alternative to a conventional neck dissection for T3 and T4 buccal mucosa tumours. Finally, carcinoma of the oral cavity in India can be said to be at least two diseases.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

Natural killer activity and NK cytotoxic factors in peripheral blood and lymph node cells from non-Hodgkin's lymphoma patients.

Natural killer (NK) activity and natural killer cytotoxic factors (NKCF) were found to be depressed in large granular lymphocytes (LGL) from the peripheral blood and lymph node lymphocytes (LNL) from untreated non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL) patients. The LGL number was also reduced in NHL patients as compared to the normal subjects. The depression in all the activities mentioned above showed a correlation with the clinical status of the patients. Exogenous interferon-alpha (IFN-alpha) treatment of the effector cells could augment the NK activity to a comparable extent in normal as well as patient's LNL. The results indicate that the production of interferon may be affected in cases of NHL and therefore it would be worthwhile to test the tolerance and efficacy of IFN-alpha in these patients.

Lectin binding in colorectal mucosa.

Lectin binding of goblet cell mucin in human colonic mucosa was studied in patients with irritable bowel syndrome, colorectal malignancy and ulcerative colitis using plant lectins, Dolichos biflorus agglutinin (DBA) and peanut agglutinin (PNA). Normal colonic mucosa demonstrated a strong binding with DBA (100%) but did not bind to PNA at all. Colonic carcinomas showed strong PNA binding (7 of 15 biopsies) while DBA binding was absent in 14 of 15 biopsies. The transitional mucosa showed reduced or absent DBA binding in 6 and positive PNA binding in 2 of 15 biopsies. During the active phase of ulcerative colitis, there was a loss of DBA binding in 10 of 15 biopsies, which was restored during remission in all. One biopsy with severe dysplasia showed PNA binding. It is concluded that normal colorectal mucosa binds DBA strongly but not PNA. Malignant tissue and transitional mucosa reveal PNA binding often, with decreased DBA binding. In ulcerative colitis DBA binding decreases during phases of activity.

Completion thyroidectomy for thyroid carcinoma.

We have reviewed the charts of 149 patients who underwent completion thyroidectomies for cancer of the thyroid. The purpose of the study was to evaluate extent of residual disease in the thyroid, and morbidity and mortality of the operation. Residual cancer was found in 58% of the cases, the morbidity was low, and there was no operative mortality.

Extracardiac rhabdomyoma: a report of two cases.

Two case reports of extracardiac rhabdomyoma (adult type) are presented. The rare occurrence of extracardiac rhabdomyoma and its relatively benign nature makes a histological diagnosis very necessary, though often difficult to make. In both cases reported here, a diagnosis of extracardiac rhabdomyoma was given and treatment with local excision yielded good results. The importance of a histological diagnosis and treatment by only a local excision is stressed.

Histopathological study of regional lymph nodes in osteosarcoma.

This paper presents the histological appearance of the lymph nodes in cases of osteogenic sarcoma of the limb bones. The nodes were studied for the degree of sinus histiocytosis. Cases with no sinus histiocytosis showed a poor prognosis while cases with moderate to marked sinus histiocytosis showed a better rate of survival. Since the regional lymph nodes play an important part in the immunological process, preservation of regional nodes is suggested.