[Clinical and morphological properties of cold nodules formed in the thyroid gland of patients treated with I-131 for hyperthyreosis].

: The authors report on the clinical and morphological features of patients who had been previously treated for toxic adenoma with different doses of 131I isotope, and were then operated on for cold nodule. Progressive pseudoatypic and Hurthle-cell transformations, which are difficult to distinguish from different-type thyroid carcinomas, were revealed in one and a solid anaplastic carcinoma in another of the five patients during histological examination of operative specimens in serial sections. On the basis of these findings the authors support the function-protective operative treatment of single toxic adenomas, although the causal relationship between isotope treatment and consecutive carcinoma can not be verified unanimously.