Understanding the natural history of papillary thyroid cancer: Case series

Background Papillary thyroid cancer (PTC) incidence continues to rise. We describe the natural history of untreated PTC patients. Methods Retrospective case series of 31 untreated PTC patients. Results We identified 31 untreated patients from the Kaiser Permanente Cancer Registry with PTC from 1973...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Head & neck 2019-12, Vol.41 (12), p.4164-4170
Main Authors: Lin, Jonathan K., Sakoda, Lori C., Darbinian, Jeanne, Chiao, Whitney, Calixto, Nathaniel, Gurushanthaiah, Deepak, Wang, Kevin H., Durr, Megan
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
carcinoma
endocrine
Head and neck
Lymph nodes
Lymphatic system
Mastectomy
Metastases
Metastasis
papillary
Papillary thyroid cancer
Risk groups
Surgery
surveillance
Survival
thyroid
Thyroid cancer
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Background Papillary thyroid cancer (PTC) incidence continues to rise. We describe the natural history of untreated PTC patients. Methods Retrospective case series of 31 untreated PTC patients. Results We identified 31 untreated patients from the Kaiser Permanente Cancer Registry with PTC from 1973 to 2010. Patients were categorized as low risk (n = 16), high risk (n = 12), or low risk but medically contraindicated for surgery (n = 3). At diagnosis, 7 (58.3%) in the high‐risk group had cervical lymph node metastases and 5 (41.7%) had distant metastases, compared to none in the low‐risk group. Among the latter, three (18.8%) patients developed tumor growth >3 mm and one (6.3%) developed regional lymph node metastases without distant metastases. The 10‐year overall survival was 71% and 35% for the low‐risk and high‐risk groups, respectively. Conclusions Patients with low‐risk untreated PTC were less likely to develop new regional or distant metastases and had better overall survival than patients with high‐risk untreated PTC. Level of Evidence 4
ISSN:1043-3074
1097-0347
DOI:10.1002/hed.25967