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Management of the Clinically Negative Lateral Neck in Medullary Thyroid Cancer

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Difficult Decisions in Head and Neck Oncologic Surgery

Part of the book series: Difficult Decisions in Surgery: An Evidence-Based Approach ((DDSURGERY))

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Abstract

Medullary thyroid cancer is relatively rare and accounts for approximately 2% of all thyroid cancer diagnoses in the United States. However, in general it is a more aggressive cancer than the more common papillary thyroid cancer. The more aggressive nature of medullary thyroid cancer leads to a different treatment algorithm relative to papillary thyroid cancer. The primary treatment for medullary thyroid cancer is total thyroidectomy with central neck dissection. This is almost universally accepted as standard of care across the world with minimal controversy. However, significant controversy remains regarding the optimal algorithm for surgical management of the lateral neck lymph nodes. This chapter reviews the most recent evidence regarding how to manage the lateral neck lymph nodes in medullary thyroid cancer.

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Correspondence to Raymon H. Grogan .

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Grogan, R.H. (2019). Management of the Clinically Negative Lateral Neck in Medullary Thyroid Cancer. In: Gooi, Z., Agrawal, N. (eds) Difficult Decisions in Head and Neck Oncologic Surgery. Difficult Decisions in Surgery: An Evidence-Based Approach. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-15123-2_15

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-15123-2_15

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-15122-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-15123-2

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