Papillary thyroid carcinoma with angioinvasion: a literature review

Abstract

Papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC) is the most common form of differentiated thyroid cancer and it is generally characterized by an indolent course. The role of the ability to invade blood vessels and its impact on the prognosis in PTC remain uncertain. The authors conducted an electronic search of publications within the PubMed database. A number of studies demonstrate angioinvasion ceasing to be an independent factor of poor prognosis upon multivariate analysis. The existence of conflicting data on the prognostic role of angioinvasion in PTC may be explained by the difficulty in differentiating between blood vessel and lymphatic vessel invasion, as well as by the use of different criteria for true angioinvasion during morphological examination of surgical specimens. Literature data on the prognostic role of the extent of blood vessel invasion in PTC are limited to a few studies and do not allow for conclusions to be drawn regarding any threshold value for risk of recurrence stratification. When examining tumors of larger size, the dependence of the number of detected invasion foci on the number of examined tumor sections becomes particularly relevant. The issue of the prognostic value of angioinvasion as a risk factor for recurrence and progression of PTC, and as a possible basis for choosing more aggressive treatment tactics, requires further investigation.