Ultrasound-Guided Percutaneous Laser Ablation of Papillary Thyroid Microcarcinoma: A Feasibility Study on Three Cases with Pathological and Immunohistochemical Evaluation

Abstract

This study demonstrates that percutaneous LA is technically feasible for complete PTMC destruction. Now, LA may be useful in selected patients with PTMC, either when the surgeon or a patient refuses surgery, or when the patient is at high risk for an operation. LA may become a primary choice of treatment for PTMC only if future new knowledge would permit preoperative recognition of multifocality and lymph node metastasis.

Ultrasound-guided percutaneous microwave ablation of solitary T1N0M0 papillary thyroid microcarcinoma: Initial experience

“…Treatment efficiency was encouraging, with complete tumour necrosis achieved at a single session of no more than 650 s in all lesions and no evidence of disease recurrence apparent during a mean follow-up of 11 months (range [3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22]. Because of the larger necrosis than the nodule preoperation we achieved, the post-operative mean volume was a little larger than preoperative during initial follow-up.…”

“…Papini et al [28] directed their first trial of ultrasound-guided laser ablation towards primary thyroid carcinoma. Valcavi et al also [12] presented their results on PTMC with laser ablation treatment in the literature. They all showed that percutaneous laser ablation was a rapid, safe, and inexpensive procedure for the ablation of a small-sized papillary thyroid tumour with no evidence of extra-glandular spread or nodal metastases.…”

“…In malignancy, ablative techniques including ethanol, radiofrequency (RF), and laser ablation have been proposed for treating recurrent nodal metastases of PTC [10][11]. With regard to the papillary thyroid microcarcinoma (PTMC), Valcavi et al [12] reported that laser ablation was technically feasible for complete PTMC destruction. However, to our knowledge application of MW energy to PTMC has not yet been reported.…”

Radiofrequency ablation for thyroid nodules: which indications? The first Italian opinion statement

“…Although current pieces of scientific evidence and experts' opinions do not allow us to treat these lesions in a nonsurgical, conservative fashion [52,53], we can suppose that in the near future, US-guided techniques might play a role also in primary PTMC, when no multifocality or nodal metastasis was found, offering patients a less aggressive therapeutic option without reducing the clinical outcomes and the very high rate of disease-free survival.…”

Incidental thyroid carcinomas. A retrospective study

“…The refinement of diagnostic imaging methods, even in animal models (1), has thus resulted in an increase in the incidence of such findings, especially in thyroid diseases, while not allowing in most cases a safe diagnosis of nature (2)(3)(4)(5)(6)(7)(8)(9)(10)(11)(12)(13)(14)(15)(16)(17).…”