Thyroid cancer and Delphian node

Excerpt

The manuscript published in this volume of the European Archives of Otolaryngology discusses the incidence and impact of pre-laryngeal nodal metastasis in thyroid cancer [1]. The authors have used the title pre-laryngeal synonymous to Delphian nodes. The subject of Delphian node metastasis in thyroid cancer is well described for a number of years however interestingly there is very little original data published on the incidence of Delphian node metastasis in thyroid cancer except in the recent literature. The Australian group (Isaacs et al. [2, 3]) published their experience of large number of patients in whom Delphian nodes were removed and the incidence of metastasis was noted to be approximately 21 %. Our group at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center looked at more than 100 patients with incidence of metastatic disease to be 25 % [4]. The authors in the present manuscript have reviewed their prospective experience of 67 patients undergoing pre-laryngeal (Delphian node biopsy) with a metastatic incidence of 19.4 %. The authors have done a good job on correlating the incidence of metastatic disease to the high-risk thyroid cancer features such as size of tumor, extrathyroidal extension and isthmus involvement. These prognostic factors are extremely well defined both in terms of overall prognosis in patients with thyroid cancer and the incidence of nodal metastasis, be that to the Delphian node or the paratracheal or lateral jugular nodes. …