Papillary carcinomas - Figure 11. Cytological presentation - cystic degeneration.

In contrast with other types of thyroid cancers, papillary carcinoma presents cystic degeneration very frequently. This phenomenon causes the greatest concern in gaining adequeate material during aspiration. Nevertheless, in certain cases even the presence of cystically degenerated cells may raise the possibility of a papillary carcinoma which happened in two of our cases when papillary carcinoma occurred in Graves' disease (see right image in the last row).