갑상선 유두암의 외측 경부림프절 전이에 대한 수술 전 평가로서 CT의 역할

The Role of CT as a Preoperative Evaluation of Lateral Cervical Lymph Node Metastasis in Papillary Thyroid Carcinoma

Background and Objectives：To assess the usefulness of computed tomography image before papillary thy-roid cancer surgery, focus on confirmation of lateral cervical lymph node metastasis not detected by ultrasonogra-phy. Material and Methods：From January 2008 to May 2009, total 150 patients who had undergone thyroid sur-gery and been confirmed papillary thyroid cancer pathologically were enrolled. They had taken neck computed tomography following the ultrasonography. Results：Computed tomography had found suspicious metastatic lat-eral neck lesion in 13 patients. After the image study, lateral neck lymph node dissection had been included in their surgical plan. Of these, only 7 cases were confirmed pathologically lateral neck lymph node metastasis(positive predictive value=0.54). Taken as whole 150 patients, additionally 4.7% of patients confirmed lateral neck lymph node metastasis by preoperative computed tomography. Conclusion：If preoperative ultrasonography was per-formed precisely, additional benefits that could be achieved by computed tomography were not much.