• The Korean Journal of Cytopathology
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.10-17
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• 1995

Anaplastic carcinoma of the thyroid gland is one of the most malignant tumors. Recently, DNA ploidy measured by flow cytometry and image analysis has been suggested as an additional useful indicator of tumor behavior. Studies on the occurrence and clinical significance of DNA aneuploidy in anaplastic carcinoma of the thyroid are rare. In this study, the pattern of DNA ploidy was measured by image analysis on Papanicolaou stained slides in four cases of anaplastic carcinoma and also measured by flow cytometry using paraffin blocks in two cases. In all cases of anaplastic carcinoma, DNA aneuploidy was found by image analaysis. By flow cytometry, one case had a diploid peak and the other case had an aneuploid peak. According to the above results, we conclude that anaplastic carcinoma of the thyroid glands have a high incidence of DNA aneuploidy and image analysis using Papanicolaou stained slides is a useful method in detecting DNA aneuploidy.

• Korean Journal of Bronchoesophagology
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.151-158
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• 1995

Anaplastic carcinoma of thyroid gland account for no more than 10% of thyroid cancer, but it shows extremely poor prognosis. The purpose of this study is to review the outcome of patients with anaplastic carcinoma over the span of 5 years and to determine the patterns of clinical presentation, age, sex and other possible prognostic variables. We analyzed 30 cases of anaplastic carcinoma retrospectively from 1991 to 1995. There were 14 men and 16 women. There age ranged 33 to 75 years with a mean of 61.0 years. Sixteen patients presented with transformationqr of well differentiated carcinoma to anaplastic carcinoma, 1 with rapid in-crease in the size of long standing goiter, 8 with rapidly growing neck mass and 4 with meta static disease. Twenty-eight patients(93.3%) showed cervical lymphnode metastasis at presentation and twenty three patients(76.6%) showed laryngotracheal invasion. Nine patients (30.3%) showed distant metastasis. Treatment modalities included surgical resection, external irradiation, radioactive iodine and systemic chemotherapy. At decision making of treatment plan, we considered completeness of initial surgery, uptake rate of whole body radioactive io-dine scan, locoregional progression and distant metastasis. The median survival was 6.8 months and three cases survived beyond 12 months.

• International journal of thyroidology
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.96-101
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• 2017

Background and Objectives: Anaplastic thyroid carcinoma (ATC) is commonly related with concurrent differentiated thyroid carcinoma (DTC). We aimed to examine the clinicopathologic characteristics, prognosis and gene expression of DTC with anaplastic foci. Materials and Methods: Eighteen patients with DTC with anaplastic foci were enrolled in this study. To compare the clinicopathologic characteristics and prognosis of anaplastic foci subjects with conventional ATC or DTC, we additionally included 12 ATC and 1030 DTC patients who diagnosed during same period. Immunohistochemistry was performed to check the gene expression in anaplastic foci and DTC component. Results: In anaplastic foci group, tumor size was larger ($2.5{\pm}1.3$ vs. $1.2{\pm}0.9cm$, p=0.001), distant metastasis was more frequent (11.1 vs. 0%, p=0.000) and 1-year survival rate was low (88.9 vs. 100%, p=0.000) than DTC group. In contrast, compared with ATC group, anaplastic foci group showed younger age at diagnosis ($50{\pm}16$ vs. $63{\pm}18years$, p=0.039), smaller tumor size ($2.5{\pm}1.3$ vs. $3.8{\pm}1.4cm$, p=0.027), less distant metastasis (11.1 vs. 41.7%, p=0.084) and longer 1-year survival rate (88.9 vs. 25.0%, p=0.001). Expression of p53 protein was observed in 100% of anaplastic foci, ATC and 12.5% of papillary thyroid carcinoma component. Conclusion: DTC with foci of anaplastic transformation has a worse prognosis than DTC, but a better prognosis than ATC. Our results support that DTC with anaplastic foci was intermediate state from DTC to ATC.

• The Korean Journal of Cytopathology
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.172-175
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• 1994

Anaplastic carcinoma of the thyroid is one of the most malignant tumors and survival for longer than three years after diagnosis is exceptional. Multinucleated giant cells of osteoclastlike appearance are seen un some of the anaplastic carcinoma, but only three cases in which the diagnosis was made by fine needle aspiration (FNA) cytology are reported in the international literature. We experienced a case of anaplastic carcinoma with osteoclastlike giant cells in a 66-yr-old female, diagnosed by FNA cytology. The smears revealed two cell populations: multinucleated giant cells and large polygonal or spindle shaped malignant cells. The FNA cytodiagnosis of anaplastic thyroid carcinoma containing osteoclastlike giant cells was substantiated by subsequent biopsy.

• Korean Journal of Head & Neck Oncology
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.153-155
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• 2009

Ectopic thyroid glands generally occur in the midline as a result of abnormal median migration, and their presence lateral to the midline is extremly rare. We report a 83-year-old male with anaplastic carcinoma admix papillary carcinoma in the extrathyroid area. We suspected left lateral neck metastasis on preoperative fine needle aspiration result and computed tomography. the patient underwent total thyroidectomy and left selective neck dissection(level II, III, IV, V). The patient was diagnosed as having an ectopic thyroid gland on the lateral neck with anaplastic carcinoma admix papillry carcinoma. The patient is alive without incident of tumor recurrence at 5month after surgery and radiotherapy.

• The Korean Journal of Cytopathology
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.32-35
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• 2003

Multinucleated giant cells of osteoclast-like appearance can be seen in a type of anaplastic carcinoma of thyroid and only a few case reports for fine needle aspiration cytologic findings are found in the literatures. Recently, we experienced a case of anaplastic carcinoma of thyroid with many osteoclast-like giant cells in a 72-year-old woman. The cytologic features and immunohistochemical results are described with special emphasis on differential diagnosis.

• Journal of Chest Surgery
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.183-189
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• 1977

There has been an alarming rise in the incidence of carcinoma of the lung in the world. The increase of the disease has been greater in men than in women, but even in women the rate has doubled in the last 20 years. During the 20 year period 1957 through 1976, 33 women with proven primary carcinoma of the lung were treated at Department of Thoracic Surgery, Seoul National University Hospital. During the period of survey, 170 consecutive cases of primary bronchogenic carcinoma were encountered in men, a male to female ratio of 5.2: 1. Ages of patients with bronchogenic carcinoma in women ranged from twenty-seven to sixty-eight years and most of them were over 40 years of age. The duration between the onset of symptoms and admission was about 9 months and the most common complaints were cough [66.6%], chest pain [60.6%], hemoptysis [48.4%] and dyspnea [45.4%]. Bronchogenic carcinoma developed most frequently in the upper lobes, and twelve [36.3%] of cases were squamous cell type, nine [27.2%] were anaplastic cell type, six [18.2%] were adenocarcinoma, one was alveolar cell type and five were unclassified type, in contrast to the usual predominence of adenocarcinoma among women in other reports. One half of the patients were inoperable and resection was feasible in only 24.2 per cent of the patients. There was no operative mortality but one case had bronchopleural fistula after pneumonectomy. Most patients with bronchogenic carcinoma in women were from large cities. Cigarette smoking appeared to be related to the occurrence of the squamous cell and anaplastic cell carcinoma because all heavy smokers had squamous cell or anaplastic cell carcinoma.

• The Korean Journal of Cytopathology
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.187-192
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• 1995

Anaplastic carcinoma of the thyroid (ACT) is a rare subtype of thyroid neoplasm. This tumor represents approximately 5-10% of all thyroid malignancies and has poor prognosis ACT often arises on a long-standing thyroid nodule and has been documented to be associated with a variety of more well-differentiated thyroid carcinomas. We experienced a case of anaplastic thyroid carcinoma who had had about a year history of thyroid getter. The patient had been injected with sclerosing agents in treatment of preexisting golfer. The ACT in this case had varied cytologic and histologic appearances: pleomorphic, giant cell, spindle and squamoid. Immunohistochemically, strong cytoplasmic positivity for cytokeratin was seen in all kinds of tumor cells. Ultrastructurally, the evidences of epithelial differentiation were seen such as intercellular junctions and tonofibrils.

• The Korean Journal of Cytopathology
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.36-42
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• 1991

We report 4 cases of malignant thymoma which were composed of 2 cases of invasive thymoma and 2 cases of thymic carcinoma. The cytologic findings of invasive thymoma were similar to those of benign thymoma. The distinctive cytologic features of thymic carcinoma were necrotic background, irregular clusters and individually scattered arrangement of anaplastic epithelial cells, and some scattered mature small lymphocytes. These findings may be found in the Hodgkin's lymphoma, seminoma, and metastatic squamous ceil carcinoma, undifferentiated carcinoma, and large ceil carcinoma of the lung. But, the feature of irregular clustering of anaplastic epithelial cell haying scanty cytoplasm was different from Hodgkin's lymphoma and seminoma. Clinical and radiologic findings as well as cytologic finding were helpful in differential diagnosis of thymic carcinoma from metastatic carcinoma.

• International journal of thyroidology
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.127-132
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• 2017

Anaplastic transformation of differentiated thyroid cancer at distant metastatic sites is extremely rare and has a poor prognosis. It usually occurs in the thyroid gland or cervical lymph nodes. Here we report a case of anaplastic transformation arising at multiple distant metastatic sites including the lung, liver, adrenal gland, bone, and lymph nodes in a patient 3 years after total thyroidectomy for follicular thyroid cancer.