American Association of Endocrine SurgeonsRadiofrequency ablation of regional recurrence from well-differentiated thyroid malignancy*
Section snippets
Patients and methods
Eight adult patients (age range, 43-86 years; mean, 59 years), 5 women and 3 men, underwent percutaneous RFA for biopsy-proven recurrent well-differentiated thyroid cancer in the neck. All patients signed an informed written consent and were determined to be without risk of bleeding, with a normal platelet count and normal coagulation parameters. The clinical information regarding the histological findings of tumor size and location is summarized in Table I.Patient Sex Age
Results
All 8 patients tolerated the RFA procedure to completion. One patient experienced hoarseness immediately after the RFA procedure. The RFA procedure in this patient was for recurrent papillary carcinoma in the central compartment after a previous total thyroidectomy. This RFA treatment most likely resulted in injury to the recurrent laryngeal nerve. The hoarseness improved after 2 months, but it did not completely resolve. A 5-mm skin burn developed in 1 patient at the RF electrode entry site as
Discussion
Percutaneous image-guided ablative therapies that use thermal energy sources, such as RF, have received much recent attention as minimally invasive strategies to treat neoplasms. Possible advantages of ablative therapies compared with surgical resection are their anticipated reduced morbidity and mortality, low cost, suitability for real-time image guidance, and ability to perform ablative procedures on outpatients. RF-induced tissue coagulation has been used in early clinical trials for the
Discussion
Dr Ian Hay (Rochester, Minn). As an endocrinologist dealing with papillary thyroid cancer patients with recurrent nodes daily, I am excited by this potential new application of RFA to selected patients who have this relatively frequent problem.
I wanted to let this Society know that this very afternoon in Seattle, my radiology colleagues are reporting to the annual American Radium Society meeting our experience over the past 8 years of treating 14 papillary thyroid cancer patients with another
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Reprint requests: Damian E. Dupuy, MD, Department of Diagnostic Imaging, Brown Medical School, Rhode Island Hospital, 593 Eddy St, Providence, RI 02903.