Carcinome anaplasique de la thyroide

Abstract

Objectives: Thyroid anaplasic carcinoma is a rare variety of thyroid cancer and one of the most aggressive tumors known to affect humans. It accounts for less than 2%of thyroid cancers and it is often extremelymalignant and rapidly fatal.
Material and methods: It is a retrospective study of 12 cases of thyroid anaplasic carcinoma hospitalized over one 16 years period (1990-2005)
Our aim is to study the clinical aspects and to discuss the therapeutic modalities of this cancer.
Results: The average age of our patients was of 68 years (51-79), there are10 women and 2 men. The signs of local compression were present in 10 cases and the physical examination objectified a goiter among 11 patients with an average size of 7 cm. Lymph nodes were observed in two cases and metastases were noted among 7 patients. Two patients
had a tracheotomy in urgency with thyroid biopsy in 5 cases, total thyroidectomy in 4 cases and partial thyroidectomy in 3 cases Bilateral neck dissection was realized in two cases. The radiotherapy was palliative in one case. The survival was less than one year for all patients
Conclusion: Thyroid anaplasic carcinoma is a very aggressive tumor, the prognosis is very bad with a survival exceeding rarely a year. Despite multimodality approaches, it still carries a dismal prognosis.

Keywords: cancer, thyroid, anaplasic, chirurgic, radiotherapy, chemotherapy