Clinical significance of calcification in Hashimoto's thyroiditis with thyroid cancer        LONG Guan-bao, ZHANG Chun-xia, ZHENG Jian-wei, et al. Department of Biliary-pancreatic Surgery, Affiliated Tongji Hospital, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430030,China
Correspondence author: SHEN Ming, E-mail:shen_ming75@yahoo.com.cn
Abstract    Objective    To investigate the clinical significance of calcification in Hashimoto's thyroiditis with thyroid cancer. Methods    The clinical data of 184 cases of Hashimoto's thyroiditis asscciated with thyroid cancer treated between January 2001 and December 2011 in Department of Biliary-pancreatic Surgery, Affiliated Tongji Hospital, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology (excluding cases with a history of thyroid surgery) were analyzed retrospectively. Results    Hashimoto's thyroiditis associated with thyroid cancer was in 43 cases（23.4%，43/184）, with calcification in 26 cases. Among 141 cases of Hashimoto's thyroiditis and Hashimoto's thyroiditis associated with benign thyroid diseases, 13 cases had calcifications. The ratio of calcification in Hashimoto's thyroiditis associated with thyroid cancerthe was higher than that in Hashimoto's thyroiditis associated with benign thyroid diseases (P<0.05). There were 22 cases of microcalcifications in 26 cases of malignant calcification while coarse calcifications were 3 cases. The specificity of microcalcifications ratio in Hashimoto's thyroiditis with thyroid cancer was 84.6%（22/26）.The diagnosis rate of Hashimoto's thyroiditis associated with thyroid cancer performed FNAC was 67.6%(25/37). Conclusion    Microcalcification has the high specificity for the diagnosis of Hashimoto's thyroiditis associated with thyroid cancer. Prompted Hashimoto's thyroiditis patients with microcalcifications on ultrasonography should be positive surgical exploration combined with intraoperative rapid pathological examination, which can improve the rate of early diagnosis of Hashimoto's thyroiditis associated with thyroid cancer effectively.