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The 12th Annual Cancer Meeting held at Institute of Molecular Pathology and Immunology of University of Porto (IPATIMUP), Porto, Portugal, on March 3-5, 2003, was devoted to carcinomas of thyroid follicular cells. During course of 3 days, a group of basic scientists, pathologists, and clinicians interested in thyroid neoplasia exchanged views about several important aspects of biology, pathology, and behavior of these tumors. One of items was thyroid neoplasm that is currently designated as papillary microcarcinoma. Following a general discussion on subject and conclusion that a change in terminology ought to be considered, a working group composed of 4 individuals listed as authors of this article met for purpose of exploring issue in more detail. A consensus was reached by group to propose a new term for entity. We would like to present to our fellow pathologists and to medical community at large rationale behind our choice, which we refer to as the Porto proposal. Papillary carcinoma is most common malignant tumor of thyroid gland. In addition to clinically detectable cases, size of which ranges widely, there is a variant currently designated papillary microcarcinoma (PMiC), which has been defined as a papillary carcinoma measuring 1 cm or less in diameter 1,2. This variant, also known as occult papillary carcinoma, latent papillary carcinoma,
Rosaí et al. (Wed,) studied this question.