180 The Ohio Journal of Science [Vol. XVII, No. 6, 



does not belong to the more malignant variety. The presence 

 of a growth in the lymph spaces suggests, however, that 

 metastasis would have occurred at no distant date had the 

 animal been allowed to live. 



Group 2. Into a distinct group fall two other cases. Both 

 of these tumors occurred in old males. The gland is extensively 

 involved by the new-growth. Some seven or eight nodules are 

 found in a single lobe. These vary in size from 5 to 20 mm. in 

 diameter. The centers of the nodules in some instances are 

 necrotic. The tumor substance itself is yellowish white. A 

 striking coloring is lent to the gross sectional appearance of the 

 specimen by the necrosis and by the presence of hemorrhage 

 both into the tumor mass and into the gland substance. 



Bands of connective tissue separate the masses of tumor 

 cells, giving an alveolar arrangement to the tumor. The stroma 

 in both cases has taken on a mucoid appearance and presents 

 many slit-like cavities from which crystals have been dissolved. 

 There is little in these neoplasms as seen microscopically to 

 remind one of the thyroid gland. In the one specimen, a few 

 tubules which are normal in appearance can be seen (Fig. 2), 

 but the arrangement of the tumor cells in and around these 

 reefs of thyroid tubules makes it seem more probable that 

 these are remnants of the normal gland structure than that the 

 tumor cells should have differentiated in such an oddly shaped 

 zone. In certain areas, the typical tumor cells are small and 

 round with deeply staining nuclei (Fig. 3). In certain other 

 areas, however, the tumor cells have assumed a spindle shape 

 and this makes it difficult to distinguish this tumor from a 

 sarcoma composed of small round and spindle-shaped cells. It 

 would, indeed, be very easy, upon casual examination to mis- 

 take the growth for the so-called sarco-carcinoma. One rnust 

 be careful to distinguish these growths from those tumors of the 

 thyroid in which both the connective tissue and epithelial ele- 

 ments have taken on a neoplastic character. The progression 

 from the areas of an undoubted carcinomatous nature to areas 

 of a sarcomatoid character can be followed without interruption. 

 A study of the pulmonary metastasis which has occurred in one 

 of these cases reveals a typical carcinomatous secondary 

 growth. These facts, it seems, warrant the diagnosis of 

 carcinoma. 



