Factors influencing the survival of patients with follicular carcinoma of the thyroid gland.

Between 1948 and 1977, 84 patients with follicular carcinoma of the thyroid gland were treated at the Cleveland Clinic. The crude survival rate was 73 per cent at five years and 43 per cent at ten years. The most important prognostic factor was the age of the patient--86 per cent of those less then 40 years old appeared to be cured of carcinoma compared with only 26 per cent of those more than 60 years old. The survival of women was a little better than that of men. Patients with large tumors did not do as well as those with small or medium sized ones. Those with highly invasive carcinoma did poorly as did those with oxyphilic tumors. Neither the extent of the operation nor the use of either external radiation or 131I appeared to affect prognosis. Both involvement of lymph nodes and local recurrences had grave prognostic significance. Those who had neither distant metastases nor a history of recurrence after a previous operation when they were first seen by us had good prognoses, 90 per cent of them apparently having been cured.