CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians, Vol 20, 270-275, Copyright
© 1970 by American Cancer Society
The Prognosis and Insurability of Thyroid Cancer Patients
Edgar L. Frazell M.D.1,
David Schottenfeld M.D.2, and
Robert V. P. Hutter M.D.3
1 Attending Surgeon, Head and Neck Service, Memorial Hospital for Cancer and Allied Diseases, New York, New York.
2 Chief, Clinical Epidemiology and Statistics, and Associate Attending Physician, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York, New York.
3 Professor and Chairman, Department of Pathology, The New Jersey College of Medicine and Dentistry, Newark, New Jersey.
A large series of thyroid cancer patients treated initially in our clinic was subjected to prolonged follow-up studies. The morphologic tumor type is the single most important prognostic feature. End-result studies indicate that well-differentiated tumors of papillary type have an excellent prognosis provided that the tumors are small and the patient is less than 40 years of age at the time of diagnosis and treatment. This should have considerable bearing on the insurability of patients in this category.
