Thyroid cancer in childhood and adolescence. A report on twenty‐eight cases

C A N C E R of the thyroid in children has been said to be “extremely rare,”l and the scarcity of case reports in the literature would seem to bear out this statement. In a series of 258 cases of carcinoma of the thyroid in 15,000 thyroid operations reported by 9 only six occurred in children less than 14 years of age. Kennedy estimated that 1 per cent of the thyroid cancers in a large series occurred in children. Crilez reported 289 cases of cancer of the thyroid in which the youngest patient was 18 years of age. Portmann, in discussing Hare’s cases, casts serious doubt on the existence of thyroid cancer in the younger age group, stating that such lesions represented benign cysts and tumors of “thyroglossal duct remnants.”a, 9 While admitting the existence of papillary thyroid cancer in children, others consider it a relatively slow-growing process.3 It is not surprising that cancer is too seldom included in the differential diagnosis of “adolescent goiter” and “cervical adenitis.” A review of the English literature from 1920 to 1948 reveals about forty reported cases of thyroid cancer occurring in the first two decades of life. Despite the high incidence of goiters in certain European areas, we found few cases of thyroid carcinoma in