The impact of primary melanoma thickness and microscopic tumor burden in sentinel lymph nodes on melanoma patient survival.

Background: The primary objectives of this work are to (1) quantitate tumor burden in sentinel lymph nodes (SLNs), and (2) assess the independent contributions of SLN tumor burden and primary melanoma thickness (PMT) with respect to progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS).

Methods: Sixty-three patients (41 male and 22 female) with one or more positive SLNs were available for review in this study, with median follow-up of 6.8 years.

Papillary thyroid cancer: surgical management of lymph node metastases.

Papillary thyroid cancer (PTC), the most common thyroid malignancy, is associated with cervical lymph node metastases in 30% to 90% of patients. While surgery is the primary treatment modality for PTC, radioactive iodine and thyroid hormone suppression often complement the treatment plan. Although thyroid hormone suppression may decrease the incidence of recurrent disease and radioactive iodine may diagnose and treat metastases, lymph node dissection (LND) is the mainstay treatment for clinically evident cervical lymph node metastases.

Persistent and recurrent hyperparathyroidism.

More than 95% of patients with primary hyperparathyroidism (HPT) will be cured at initial operation by an experienced surgeon. Despite this success rate, persistent and recurrent HPT remain challenging clinical entities. The most cost effective and safest treatment for persistent and recurrent HPT is avoidance by successful first operation.