Role of teamwork - raising the possibility of medullary carcinoma (I)
 
Medullary carcinoma - Case 08


The cytological pattern is suspicious for a carcinoma not otherwise specified including others medullary carcinoma.

Right lobe
Left lobe


The presence of large hyperechogenic patches without acoustic shadow is a characteristic finding in medullary carcinoma. This property increases the likelyhood of medullary carcinoma more than 30-times.
Taking the cytological and sonographic pattern into account the most possible diagnosis was medullary carcinoma which was conformed by serum calcitonin determination. (We only mention here, that we do not perform routine serum calcitonin measurement in every patient with thyroid nodules, because it seems possible that faced with the low prevalence of this malignancy in our iodine deficient region the disadvantages may exceed the advantages.)
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