FREDERICK L. GREENE is the Chairman of the Department of Surgery and Director of the Surgical Residency Program at the Carolinas Medical Center, Charlotte, NC, USA. He is currently Clinical Professor of Surgery at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine. Dr Greene is also the editor of the sixth and seventh editions of the AJCC Cancer Staging Manual. (email: Frederick.Greene@carolinashealthcare.org)

ANDRZEJ L. KOMOROWSKI is a Consultant in General Surgery at the Department of General Surgery, Hospital Virgen del Camino, Sanlúcar de Barrameda (Cádiz), Spain. His main area of interest is surgical oncology. (email: alkomorowski@wp.pl)

Historical perspective and current epidemiology.- Pathology of differentiated thyroid cancers.- Clinical evaluation of the thyroid gland.- Imaging in thyroid cancer.- Staging of differentiated thyroid cancer.- Preoperative endocrine management of differentiated thyroid cancer.- Surgical treatment of thyroid cancer.- Minimally invasive approach to the thyroid.- Management of advanced thyroid cancer: Local recurrence and neck dissections.- Nutritional issues in patients with thyroid cancer.- Patient safety in surgery for thyroid cancer.- Postoperative complications in thyroid surgery.- Adjuvant treatment and follow up of differentiated thyroid cancer.