Comparison of three prognostic indexes in differentiated thyroid cancer.

We investigated epidemiological data and correlation coefficient among three prognostic indexes (TNM, AGES and DeGroot's) in 82 patients with differentiated thyroid carcinoma (mean age: 41.7 +/- 16.6 years and sex ratio F8:M1). Seventy eight cases (95.1%) had papillary and 4 (4.8%) follicular carcinoma. Surgical complications were: vocal cord paralysis 7 cases (8.4%), hypoparathyroidism 10 cases (12.2%) and both in four cases (4.8%). We did not find surgical complications in patients subjected to main limited procedures. After a follow up of 54.5 +/- 44.5 months one patient was dead due to thyroid cancer (1.2%) and 2 patients had tumor relapse (2.4%). We found positive correlation between TNM and AGES, AGES and DeGroot and DeGroot's and TNM indexes, with concordance between them (k = 0.2281, p = 0.001). In our series, follicular cancer prevalence is lower than literature reports. Our results suggest that TNM, DeGroot's and AGES indexes may have similar prognostic value in differentiated thyroid cancer.

Exophthalmometry in Mexican adults.

BACKGROUND: Up to the present time we do not know of any report about normal proptosis values in normal Mexican adults. Moreover, we think it is important to establish them in each population to distinguish between normal and pathological orbital processes because the values may vary in relation to ethnic factors. SUBJECTS AND METHODS: Ocular protrussion values using Hertel's exophthalmometer were measured in 301 randomly selected normal adult subjects (185 females and 116 males), mean age 36 +/- 8.6 years, without known history of ocular trauma, surgery, endocrine disease or any ocular pathologic process. RESULTS: The mean protrussion value was 15.18 +/- 2.16 mm for males and 14.82 +/- 1.98 mm for females. (p = NS). The distance between the lateral orbital rims was 97.78 +/- 3.97 mm for males and 94.33 +/- 1.98 mm for females (p < 0.001). We found a statistically significant difference between the values found in Mexican adults and those of American white and black subjects with enough data to make statistical calculations. DISCUSSION: We established normal proptosis values for Mexican adults using Hertel's exophthalmometer. Ocular protrussion was lower than those reported in normal American black and white adults. We argue that the differences may be explained by different skull structure, and more specifically, orbital due to anthropological or racial differences.