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Endocrine Journal 1999, 46 (1), 209-216
NOTE
Symptomatic versus Asymptomatic Papi
Microcarcinoma: A Retrospective Analy
Outcome and Prognostic Factors
Ilary Thyroid
sis of Surgical
IWAO SUGITANI AND YosHIHIDE FUJIMOTO
Division of Head and Neck, Cancer Institute Hospital, Tokyo 170-8455, Japan
Abstract. Although the mortality rate associated with papillary microcarcinoma (PMC) of the thyroid
generally is very low, some patients present with bulky nodal metastasis or distant metastasis and have an unfavorable prognosis. We retrospectively reviewed clinical aspects, surgical treatment and outcome of 178 patients with PMC in an attempt to determine the prognostic factors. The cause-specific 10-year
survival rate was 96%. Three of four patients who showed signs of distant metastasis during the
postsurgical period died of the disease, and another died of local recurrence. The most significant prognostic factors were the presence of clinically apparent lymph-node metastasis and hoarseness due to recurrent nerve palsy at the time of diagnosis. All distant metastases and cancer-specific deaths occurred in the 30 patients with symptomatic PMC who had either cervical lymphadenopathy, recurrent laryngeal nerve palsy or both. The 148 patients who had neither symptom had a distinctily favorable
outcome. Total thyroidectomy followed by radioactive iodine treatment did not improve the final outcome in patients with symptomatic PMC. We conclude that patients with asymptomatic PMC can expect a truly favorable outcome, but some of those with symptomatic PMC may fall within a high-risk
group of patients who do not benefit from aggressive treatment.
Key words: Papillary microcarcinoma of the thyroid, Prognostic factors (Endocrine Journal 46: 209-216,1999)
IN recent years ultrasonography and fine needle
aspiration biopsy cytology have made it easier to detect papillary microcarcinoma (PMC) of the
thyroid [1], but the treatment of patients with PMC remains controversial, because those minute cancers
remain harmless tumors with only a few exceptions
[2]. Several autopsy studies have revealed that more
than 10% of patients who die of diseases other than thyroid cancer have PMC, but remain
asymptomatic throughout their lives [3-8]. The outcome generally was also favorable for patients
Received: July 2, 1998 Accepted: October 16, 1998 Correspondence to: Dr. Iwao SUGITANI, Division of Head and Neck, Cancer Institute Hospital, 1-37-1 Kami-ikebukuro, Toshima-ku, Tokyo 170-8455, Japan
if minute cancers were found incidentally in their surgically resected thyroid specimens, even if the
cancers were associated with regional lymph node metastasis [9].
Nevertheless, occasional patients with PMC
presented with bulky nodal metastasis or with distant metastasis alone when they first visited hospitals and a minute primary cancer lesion was
detected later in the thyroid. Some of these patients clearly had an unfavorable course [10-12].
Until recently, patients with minute thyroid cancers have routinely received surgical treatment
at our institution. The purpose of this study was
to retrospectively evaluate the prognostic factors of patients who underwent surgery for PMC, and
to formulate guidelines for managing patients with this type of tumor.
210 SUGITANI et al.
Materials and Methods Results
The World Health Organization Histologic Classification published in 1988 [13] defined PMC
as a "papillary carcinoma 1.0 cm or less in diameter". During the 18-year period from 1976
through 1993, 178 patients with PMC underwent a
primary thyroid surgery at the Cancer Institute Hospital. This series comprised 25 males and 153
females. The mean age was 52 years (range, 19-79
years), and the mean duration of follow-up after surgery was 12 years (range, 5-22 years). The
prognostic factors we evaluated included: (1) sex; (2) age at primary surgery (under 50 years, 50 years or over); (3) the manifestation that led to initial
detection of PMC (cervical lymphadenopathy, hoarseness, thyroid tumor, incidental detection at
physical examination, incidental detection at
postoperative pathological examination); (4) maximum diameter of PMC (less than 0.5 cm, 0.5 cm or larger); (5) multifocality in the thyroid; (6)
lymph node metastasis; (7) extrathyroidal invasion; and (8) pathohistological appearance. To evaluate multifocality, surgical specimens
removed from 164 patients who underwent hemithyroidectomy or larger resection were studied
by routine pathological examination. Clinical
lymph node metastases 1.0 cm or larger in size were differentiated from microscopically detected metastases. As for the microscopic lymph-node
metastases, 136 patients who underwent central-zone dissection or more extensive surgery were
studied. Permanent paraffin sections from 144
patients were examined for the pathohistologic appearance of PMC in terms of the grade of
sclerosis, the grade of encapsulation and the dominant histological structure of the lesion.
Sclerosis was classified into 4 grades, (-), (±), (+) and (++), according to the amount of interstitial
connective tissue. Encapsulation was classified into 3 grades: completely encapsulated, incompletely
capsulated and non-capsulated. The dominant
structures of the lesions were classified into
papillary, follicular and mixed papillo-follicular types. The Kaplan-Meier method was used for survival-
rate analysis, and log-rank test and Fisher's exact
probability test were used for statistical analysis.
Overall outcome
The cause-specific 10-year survival rate for all 178 patients was 96%. Papillary thyroid carcinoma
recurred postoperatively in 13 patients, including regional node metastasis in 11 and distant
metastasis in four. Two of these four also had
local recurrences. Four patients had undergone two or more reoperations for local recurrences.
Three of four patients who showed distant metastasis died of the disease. The fourth patient
died of multiple, invasive local recurrences. The clinical details of the patients who died of PMC
are shown in Table 1. Eleven patients died of unrelated diseases: cerebrovascular disease (3),
myocardial infarction (1), lung cancer (2), breast cancer (2), colon cancer (1), pancreas cancer (1) and
larynx cancer (1).
Prognostic factors and outcomes
As shown in Table 2, the most significant risk factors in patients with PMC were such clues to PMC detection as the presence of clinically detected large lymph-node metastasis and hoarseness due to recurrent laryngeal nerve palsy caused by direct invasion of PMC. No patients in the present series
presented with distant metastases or extrathyroidal invasion of adjacent tissues other than the recurrent laryngeal nerve at the time of the initial surgery. The rates of tumor recurrence and those of cancer-specific death were significantly different in patients who presented with either lymphadenopathy or hoarseness from those in patients who were asymptomatic (Table 3). Postoperative occurrence of distant metastasis, repeated local recurrences, and a final outcome of cause-specific death were seen only in the 30 symptomatic PMC patients. In marked contrast, none of the 148 patients in the asymptomatic PMC group died of the disease. Furthermore, although there were four patients who required reoperation for enlarged metastatic lymph nodes later, invasive local recurrences have never occurred in the asymptomatic PMC group. Such factors as sex, age, maximum diameter of
PMC, multifocality, and pathohistologic appearance were not statistically significant as the cause of
PAPILLARY THYROID MICROCARCINOMA 211
cancer death, although some tendencies were
observed: (1) there were no PMC-related deaths in
young female patients; (2) patients with more marked lymphatic spread (intrathyroidal metastatic lesions and microscopic lymph-node metastases)
tended to have a favorable outcome; (3) patients with highly fibrotic PMC and non-capsulated PMC
tended to have a worse outcome than those with the contrary findings.
Pathologically, no poorly differentiated papillary carcinoma was seen in this series.
Therapeuetic methods for symptomatic PMC and their effects
The relationship between the various treatment methods and the outcome was studied
retrospectively in the symptomatic PMC group of
patients (Table 4). At the time of operation, several different surgeons arbitrarily determined the extent
of thyroid resection and that of nodal resection, with a general trend towards more extended
resection for more advanced lesions. Accordingly, total thyroidectomy did not improve the outcome,
and there was no definite relationship between the extent of lymph-node dissection and the curability
of the symptomatic PMC.
All of three patients given radioactive iodine therapy died of the disease, although the therapy
was done when distant metastases or severe nodal
recurrences were detected one year to four years
after the initial thyroid surgery.
Discussion
In the present study we reviewed the outcomes of 178 patients who underwent surgery for PMC.
The important prognostic factors were the presence of clinically apparent lymph-node metastasis and
hoarseness due to invasion of the recurrent laryngeal nerve at the time of diagnosis. Therefore,
patients with PMC can be classified into two groups in terms of malignancy: (1) a symptomatic PMC
group characterized either by preoperatively or intraoperatively overt lymph-node metastasis 1.0
cm or larger in size or by recurrent laryngeal nerve
palsy, and (2) an asymptomatic PMC group in which patients present with neither condition. Although none of our patients presented distant
metastasis when they first visited us, those with
hematogenous metastasis should be included in the symptomatic PMC group. When PMCs were
detected at periodical medical examinations, mass screenings, postoperative pathological exam-
inations, or found as symptomless nodules by
patients themselves, only 3% of the patients had
postoperative tumor recurrence locally and none
Table 1. Clinical details of four patients who d ied of minute papillary thy roid carcinoma
212 SUGITANI et al.
developed distant metastasis. In sharp contrast, there were several aggressive cancers among the
symptomatic PMC group: 30% of the patients with symptomatic PMC showed postoperative
recurrences and 13% of them died of the cancer
(P<0.05). With regard to the usual papillary thyroid carcinomas, which are larger than 1.0 cm in
diameter, many investigators agree that there are two distinctly different risk groups of patients [14-16]. In accordance with the AMES classification
advocated by Cady et al. [14], Sanders and
colleagues [17] concluded that patients with occult PMC who presented with cervical node disease
were classified into two risk groups defined by age and sex. They reported that neither female
Table 2. Prognostic factors and outcome of patients with papillary thyroid microcarcinoma (PMC)
PAPILLARY THYROID MICROCARCINOMA 213
patients 50 years of age or younger nor male
patients 40 years or younger died of the disease. But, in our series, although no female patient under
age 50 died of the disease, one 38-year-old male
patient died of distant metastasis. Rosen et al. [18] also pointed out that there were some aggressive
thyroid cancers in the low-risk age population
(under the age of 40). We consider that a patient with clinically apparent local cancer invasion should be classified into a high-risk group, even if
the patient belongs to the low-risk age population
[19]. Nussbaum et al. [20] suggested that papillary
thyroid cancinoma presenting with cervical
lymphadenopathy was a more aggressive disease.
In our series, a clinically detectable, 1.0 cm or larger lymph-node metastasis was an important
prognostic factor. All patients who died of the disease had nodal metastases 3.0 cm or larger. It is noteworthy that patients who had four or more
intrathyroidal minute lesions and five or more lymph nodes with microscopic metastatic lesions
were rather associated with favorable outcomes. Thus the extent of lymphatic spread of papillary
cancer cells itself proved not to be an indicator of its high malignancy.
As to the pathohistological aspects of PMC, Alto
et al. [12] reported that, although distant metastasis is uncommon and the mortality rate is low, occult
papillary carcinomas with histologically invasive lesions had a high propensity for recurrence. In
our study, patients with non-encapsulated PMC
tended to have worse outcomes. We also found that patients with primary lesions of the highly
Table 3. Comparison of postoperative courses of two groups of patients with symptomatic PMC and asymptomatic PMC
214 SUGITANI et a!.
sclerosing type had the worse outcomes. It is assumed that PMC that grows more aggressively induces a stronger fibrotic reaction around the lesion.
An appropriate treatment method should be chosen especially for patients with symptomatic PMC [21-23]. Some of them may have a high-risk cancer and others may have a low-risk cancer. The treatment of papillary thyroid cancer in general is still controversial concerning the extent of thyroidectomy, the extent of neck dissection and the need for postoperative adjuvant therapies [24]. In Western countries, total thyroidectomy followed by radioactive iodine whole body ablation and suppression of TSH secretion is widely advocated for all patients with papillary thyroid carcinoma who are classified even in a low-risk group in order to improve the prognosis [25-33]. Some authors stated, however, that patients with low-risk
papillary thyroid carcinoma have such a favorable prognosis as 98% survival in 20-year follow-up study, that further beneficial effects of those "complete" therapy have never been convincingly
shown [34, 35]. Sanders et al. [17] advocated total thyroidectomy followed by radioactive iodine whole-body ablation and TSH suppression for
patients in a high-risk age group of PMC. In our series, however, we have been accustomed to
perform lobectomy or subtotal thyroidectomy along with central zone dissection or ipsilateral modified neck dissection for a localized, non-invasive PMC lesion and total thyroidectomy along with neck dissection for a widely spread lesion or an invasive lesion. Radioactive iodine whole body ablation and TSH suppression have not routinely been carried out [24]. The use of radioactive iodine therapy was carried out for three patients with symptomatic PMC which showed severe local recurrences or distant metastases. All other trials to control locally invasive recurrences and distant metastases, such as aggressive resection including the larynx and trachea, and external irradiation did not improve the final outcomes. It is certain that, although we have to perform a prospective, large control study in order to determine the definite therapeutic guideline for this disease, our results imply that the prognosis of individual patients with PMC would be determined largely by the biological malignancy of the tumor itself, and may hardly be modified by therapeutic methods.
In 1969, Takahashi [3] reported an unexpectedly high detection rate for 13.8% of PMC in 320 unselected autopsy cases. And Sampson [4] reported that among a total of 391 autopsies from the Hiroshima-Nagasaki series, 111 cadavers had PMC. Many world-wide autopsy series have also shown a surprisingly high prevalence of PMC, ranging from 6 to 28%, without any significant differences in prevalence related to sex or age [5-8], whereas it is known that the prevalence of clinically evident thyroid cancer is only about 0.1% to 0.05% of the general population [36, 37]. As shown in the present study, all patients with an asymptomatic PMC have shown very favorable outcomes when treated by conservative surgical means. Hubert et al. [38] also showed that PMC was a nonlethal and curable disease and that nodal metastasis did not influence its outcome. It is also reported that PMCs metastasize to lymph nodes with a frequency similar to that of "clinical"
papillary carcinomas [9]. Although it is true that PMC may rarely be a source of dangerous metastatic morbidity and can be viewed as
potentially lethal [10-12], the large majority of PMCs are asymptomatic and belong to a distinctly different category of cancer- from the symptomatic PMCs in view of biological malignancy and such asymptomatic PMCs would be expected to remain harmless throughout the entire life of the patient [39]. Now particularly in Western countries, it is assumed that detection of occult, non-clinical microcarcinoma by ultrasonography and their surgical treatment have almost no effect in reducing thyroid cancer deaths in the general population, and that only palpable PMC would be treated by conservative surgery [34, 39-41]. In Japan, ultrasonography has largely been used at examinations of varied thyroid lesions including differentiation of benign and malignant nodules, because one of every six nodules is malignant, roughly 90% of all thyroid cancers are of a papillary variant, many benign nodules are cystic, and specificity and sensitivity of ultrasound in making the diagnosis of papillary carcinoma are 90% and 83% [42]. Then small incidental lesions in the thyroid can often be detected and it is possible to make a diagnosis of PMC with the aid of ultrasonography-guided fine-needle aspiration biopsy cytology [1]. PMCs are found incidentally in one of 100 to 300 people at annual medical
PAPILLARY THYROID MICROCARCINOMA 215
examinations or at mass screenings [43]. When
PMC was detected, we had routinely attempted to remove it. At our institute, our treatment method
for PMC changed in 1995 from routinely
performing surgery on all patients with PMC to conservatively follow their courses carefully, so long as the PMC is asymptomatic. Twenty-one
patients were found to have asymptomatic PMC and have been followed up until 1998. Although the duration of follow-up is short (maximum, 5
years), there have been no patients whose PMC needed surgery due to growing larger or becoming
symptomatic. It remains to be seen which non-clinical PMCs
will develop to clinical lesions with the potency to cause recurrent laryngeal nerve palsy or disease-
specific death, and how to differentiate patients
with such high-risk cancers from others [44]. We have to await the results of careful controlled trials
to corroborate a rational management of this
disease. In order to determine the potential grade of malignancy of individual PMCs, such biological
approaches as determination of expression of
growth factors and DNA content will have to be investigated [45].
Acknowledgement
The authors wish to thank Dr. Akio Yanagisawa,
Department of Pathology, Cancer Institute, for his
valuable assistance.
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