SUMMARY – Papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC) is considered one of the most favorable tumors, indolent, with rare distant dissemination. Lungs and bones are the most common metastatic sites. Unusual sites of PTC distant metastases are extremely rare. Brain, liver, skin, kidney, pancreas, and adrenal gland PTC metastases have been sporadically reported in the literature. An 86-year-old female patient underwent total thyroidectomy and neck dissection due to PTC. Postoperative whole body iodine-131 scintigraphy with I-131 SPECT/CT of the abdomen revealed radioiodne avid left adrenal gland metastasis together with high postoperative serum thyroglobulin (Tg) value of more than 5000 µg/L and high serum Tg antibodies. Considering the above-mentioned findings, patient‘s age and multiple comorbidities, radioiodine therapy was applied. PTC metastases to the adrenal gland are extremely rare, and to our knowledge, only nine cases have been reported in the literature. This case report complements rare examples of unusual PTC metastases.
Background: Indolent nature but a high incidence of differentiated thyroid cancer (DTC) remains a challenge for optimizing patient care. Therefore, prognostic factors present valuable information for determining an adequate clinical approach. Methods: This study assessed prognostic features of 1167 papillary (PTC) and 215 follicular (FTC) thyroid cancer patients that had undergone surgery between 1962 and 2012, and were followed-up up to 50 years in a single institution, till April 2020. Age, gender, tumor size, presence of local and distant metastases at presentation, extrathyroidal extension, disease recurrence, and cancer-specific survival were evaluated. Results: In multivariate analysis, factors affecting the worse outcome were age (p = 0.005), tumor size (p = 0.006), and distant metastases (p = 0.001) in PTC, while extrathyroidal extension (p < 0.001), neck recurrence (p = 0.002), and distant metastases (p < 0.001) in FTC patients. Loco-regional recurrence rate was 6% for PTC and 4.7% for FTC patients, while distant metastases were detected in 4.2% PTC and 14.4% of FTC patients. The 10-year cancer-specific survival rates for PTC and FTC were 98.6% and 89.8%, respectively (p < 0.001). Conclusions: Negative prognostic factors, besides distant metastases, were older age and greater tumor size in PTC, and extrathyroidal extension and neck recurrence in FTC patients. The recurrence and mortality rates were very low.
Parathyroid scintigraphy with 99m Tc-MIBI is an imaging technique used in nuclear medicine and performed in patients with suspected hyperparathyroidism (HPT). The objective of this study was to evaluate the role of this technique in patients who, along with suspected HPT, also have thyroid nodules. Retrospective analysis included a period of 8 years (2006)(2007)(2008)(2009)(2010)(2011)(2012)(2013). The study included 91 patients with clinical or laboratory suspected HPT. Pathologic changes in parathyroid glands were demonstrated in 47 (70%) of 67 patients with positive scintigraphy. Pathologic changes in parathyroid glands were not evident in the remaining 20 (30%) patients. Out of nine patients with negative scintigraphy results but with suspected enlargement of the parathyroid gland examined by ultrasound, eight (89%) patients did not show pathologic changes in the parathyroid gland, whereas one (11%) patient had evident changes. Eight (54%) of 15 patients with suspected scintigraphy had positive ultrasound findings, as well as fine needle aspiration cytology (FNAC) findings with parathyroid hormone (PTH) determination in the aspirate. Seven (46%) patients had negative FNAC findings and PTH in the aspirate. The study showed scintigraphy to have high sensitivity (98%) in detecting patients with pathologic changes in the parathyroid glands. In patients with suspected HPT, scintigraphy needs to be combined with FNAC and PTH determination in the aspirate due to its low specificity of 28%.
Background: We investigated the potential use of SPECT quantification in addition to qualitative brain perfusion analysis for the detection of anti-NMDAR encephalitis. The question is how to normalize brain activity to be able to quantitatively detect perfusion patterns. Usually, brain activity is normalized to a structure considered unaffected by the disease. Methods: Brain [99mTc]-HMPAO SPECT was performed as a method to detect brain perfusion patterns. The patterns of abnormal brain perfusion cannot always be reliably and qualitatively assessed when dealing with rare diseases. Recent advances in SPECT quantification using commercial software have enabled more objective and detailed analysis of brain perfusion. The cerebellum and whole brain were used as the normalization structures and were compared with visual analysis. Results: The quantification analysis performed with whole brain normalization confirmed right parietal lobe hypoperfusion while also detecting statistically significant left-to-right perfusion differences between the temporal lobe and thalamus. Whole brain normalization further described bilateral frontal lobe hyperperfusion, predominantly of the left lobe, and was in accordance with visual analysis. Conclusion: SPECT quantitative brain perfusion analysis, using the whole brain as the normalization structure rather than the cerebellum, in this case, improved confidence in the visual detection of anti-NMDAR encephalitis and provided unexpected solutions to atypical psychiatric dilemmas.
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