Alternative Surgical Strategies and Favorable Outcomes in Patients with Medullary Thyroid Carcinoma in Japan: Experience of a Single Institution

Background Medullary thyroid carcinoma (MTC) accounts only for 1.4% of all thyroid malignancies in Japan. Since 1996, we have performed hemithyroidectomy, instead of total thyroidectomy, for sporadic nonhereditary MTC when the primary lesion is located in only one lobe. Regarding lymph node dissection, modified radical neck dissection (MND) at least ipsilateral to the tumor has been routinely performed, even if there is no clinically apparent metastasis. We investigated the clinical outcomes of MTC patients in our department.