During the last decade there have been a number of reports dealing with the occurrence of cancer of the thyroid. These articles have placed particular emphasis upon the incidence of cancer in the nontoxic solitary thyroid tumor. Ward1 in 1947 reported a 15.6% incidence in nontoxic solitary nodular goiter. Cole2 in 1949 reported an incidence of 24.4%, and Crile3 in the same year found an incidence of 24.5% in this type of goiter. Previous to this time the nodular goiter had been classified as toxic or nontoxic, and the importance of the solitary type of nontoxic nodular goiter had not been emphasized. This high incidence (24.5%) of cancer is in great contrast to the findings of Watt,4 who in 1951 reported an incidence of 2.5% of cancer in nontoxic solitary nodular goiters from an Atlantic seaboard area.
Sokal * in three recent articles has presented a statistical