Surgical Experience in the Management of 125 Patients with Thyroid Masses in Kashmir

Abstract

Results of surgical treatment in 125 patients with thyroid masses who attended to a Unit of the Department of ENT, Head and Neck Surgery of Govt. Medical College associated SMHS Hospital Srinagar in the first decade of this century are presented. Age of the patients ranged from 17 to 68 years peaking in the fourth decade of life (Figure 1 and Figure 2). Near 85% of the patients with thyroid masses were female and most of the cases (76%) euthyroid at the time of presentation. Depending upon the expertise of the pathologist, the FNA cytology has a good role in the preoperative diagnosis of thyroid masses especially the malignant types (Figure 3 and Figure 4). The specificity of FNA cytology in detecting malignant thyroid tumors in this study was 100% and the sensitivity was 73.08%. The overall diagnostic accuracy was 83.20%. 45.60% of the thyroid masses proved on excision biopsy to be malignant of which papillary carcinoma continued to be the most common malignant thyroid tumor followed by the medullary, the follicular and the undifferentiated types. Radionuclide scanning gave equivocal results in distinguishing between the benign and the malignant thyroid nodules in this study, but it was useful in evaluating indeterminate cases of FNA cytology. Magnetic resonance imaging of neck was used as an adjunctive imaging modality in assessing the extent of the primary malignant thyroid lesion, its direct extra-thyroidal spread and regional nodal metastases (Figure 5 and Figure 6). Different surgical techniques utilized in dealing with the thyroid masses included partial thyroidectomies and total thyroidectomy with or without modified neck dissection and the results are discussed.