[Hashimoto's thyroiditis and thyroid cancer: a report of a clinical case and a review of the literature].

Considerable controversy exists concerning the existence of statistically significant relationship between Hashimoto's disease and thyroid cancer, since there is very discordance in the incidence reported in literature, ranging from 0.5% by Crile and Hazard (5) to as high as 22.5% by Hirabayashi and Lindsay (9). Within this context, the authors present a clinical case of a patient who previously underwent lobectomy for a nodular papillary cancer of the thyroid. The histological diagnosis after "totalization" procedure proved to be Hashimoto's thyroiditis on a previous cancer. Starting from this case, an accurate review of the existing literature is carried out and some pathogenetic theories are proposed on the correlation between this two lesions.