[Metastases to the thyroid from adenocarcinomas. Review of the world literature around five personal cases (author's transl)].

The authors propound five personal clinical cases of intra-thyroid metastases from epithelial carcinomas. Looking through the world literature, they found 134 other such cases. Analyzing these cases, there is a marked preponderance of renal cancers. The other most frequency primary cancers are of the breast, tract, lungs and skin epitheliomas. Undeclared metastases discovered at autopsy seem to be much more frequency (approximately 7.7% of those who die of their cancer have such metastases). This discrepancy between the rarity of clinical metastases and the frequency of microscopic metastases is explained by their very great latency and their very slow progress. This justifies the attempt at a curative treatment every time this is possible: surgery plus cobalt therapy. This can produce a fairly long survival rate: one year and four months on average when the metastasis is discovered before the primary cancer; two years and then months when the metastasis is discovered after.