Abstract
Introduction: Thyroid cancer is a rare malignancy and accounts for less than one percent of malignant neoplasms, however, it is the most common type of endocrine malignancy and accounts for most deaths caused by all of the endocrine tumors combined. Differentiated thyroid cancer, including papillary and follicular types, accounts for 95% of all thyroid cancers.
Objectives: Studying the characteristics of thyroid cancer is useful in identifying at-risk populations and early diagnosis. In this study, the demographic, clinical and histopathological features of patients with papillary thyroid cancer were investigated.
Patients and Methods: In a retrospective and descriptive study, patients with papillary thyroid cancer who referred to endocrinology clinics in Semnan province between 21 March 2014 to 20 March 2020 were enrolled. Demographic, clinical, histopathological and laboratory data were extracted from patients’ medical files and recorded in the checklist. Data were analyzed at 95% confidence intervals and significance level less than 0.05.
Results: A total of 43 patients were diagnosed with papillary thyroid cancer. The mean age (± SD) was 39.07±13.9 years (14-75), 39 patients (90.7%) were female. The mean tumor size was 24.20±12.6 mm. Papillary thyroid tumor was multifocal in 13 patients (30.2%). Tumor variant in 8 patients (18.6%) was micro-papillary. The result of needle aspiration was reported to be malignant in 81.4% of cases. Tumor spread was more lymphatic and vascular (11.6%) and distant metastasis was seen in only one case (2.3%) since, cervical lymph node metastasis was seen in 10 patients (23.3%). The prevalence of recurrence was 34.8% and the most type was nodal. Nodal recurrence was seen at younger ages and local recurrence was seen at older ages (P=0.024). This study showed a significant inverse correlation between age and anti- thyroglobulin levels (P=0.005).
Conclusion: The results of our study showed that papillary thyroid cancer with a prevalence of 1.1 per 100000 is more common in young females, with a recurrence rate of 35%, which indicates a relatively low prevalence but high recurrence and more incidence in the younger population. Due to the high recurrence rate, follow-up of patients after thyroidectomy and complementary therapies is very important.