Follicular carcinoma of the thyroid following radiotherapy for Hodgkin's disease

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Abstract
Radiation-induced cancer in man appeared only six years after the discovery of X rays. This was a case of a 33-year-old technician who developed a squamous cell carcinoma of the skin of the hand four years after working with the roentgen tubes. The association of radiation therapy to the head, neck and chest with the development of thyroid neoplasm was first suggested by Duffy and Fitzgerald in 1950. Thyroid cancers have arisen after external radiation therapy for conditions such as acne vulgaris (Carmel & Kaplan, 1976), tuberculous adenitis, tinea capitis (Modan et al, 1974), enlarged thymus (Hempelmann et al, 1967), and tonsillar and adenoidal lesions. Thyroid cancer after head and neck irradiation for Hodgkin's disease is a rare occurrence, presumably because the high doses are ablative rather than carcinogenic (Greenspan, 1974). The number of cases of thyroid cancer reported after radiation therapy for Hodgkin's disease is less than 20. The usual type of thyroid carcinoma is papillary or mixed papilla...