Overview of surgical pathology of the thyroid gland.

The purpose of this overview is to provide timely information on selected topics on the surgical pathology of the thyroid gland. Selected publications of the author and his colleagues at the University of Michigan and the Maine Medical Center form the basis of this review. Information provided in our reports is updated by perusal of recent, pertinent publications. The following questions summarize the contents of the overview. What is a "lateral aberrant thyroid"? Does it always represent metastatic carcinoma? What are dyshormogenetic goiters? Can "focal thyroiditis" in thyroid glands removed for the treatment of Graves' disease and toxic nodular goiters be predictive of the development of postoperative hypothyroidism? What is the pathology of autonomously functioning (hot) nodules? Do tall-cell, columnar-cell, and diffuse sclerosing types of papillary carcinomas forbode bad prognoses? What is the controversy over Hurthle cell tumors? Does the presence of a better differentiated component in an anaplastic thyroid carcinoma modify its biologic behavior? Are poorly differentiated carcinomas unique histologic variants? Does their histology affect prognosis? What is the most common small-cell tumor of the thyroid gland? Has the Chernobyl nuclear disaster affected the incidence of childhood thyroid carcinoma? Are these radiation-induced tumors more aggressive? The answers, some of which are controversial, are found in this overview. The aims here were to provide information to surgeons and pathologists and to improve the care of patients with thyroid disease.