Recent results of reoperative surgery in medullary carcinoma of the thyroid.

: Reoperative surgery of medullary carcinoma of the thyroid can be avoided by meticulous primary surgery. Reoperative surgery can succeed even if the tumour and its metastases are bilateral, as is often the case in hereditary cases. Even patients with numerous macroscopic metastases can show normaligation of their calcitonin (CT) levels in response to reoperative surgery. Patients with normal postoperative CT values after the combined short time Ca++ and pentagastrin test continued to show normal results when followed up for up to eight years.