The management of well-differentiated thyroid cancer with end-stage renal disease

Abstract

The occurrence of thyroid cancer in patients with endstage renal disease is rare. We have had the experience of treating two such patients. The problems, encountered in these patients, were the enlarged parathyroid glands at the time of total thyroidectomy and the treatment of these patients with 131I when the biologic halflife of radioiodine increases after hemodialysis. Both patients were treated by total thyroidectomy and postoperative administration of 131I, either empirically or dosimetrically, and are living and well, 9 yr and 7 yr after operations, respectively.