Clinical Study of Papillary Thyroid Carcinoma

Clinical Study of Papillary Thyroid Carcinoma

Objective: The purpose of this study was to summarize the treatment outcomes of thyroid carcinoma at our hospital in order to develop future treatment strategies.

Methods: A total of 86 patients with papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC) who underwent primary surgical treatment between 1988 and 2007 were analyzed. The patients included 24 males and 64 females between 19 and 83 years of age (median age: 60.1 years). We evaluated the clinical stage using the 6th edition of the American Joint Committee on Cancer (AJCC)/ International Union Against Cancer (UICC) tumor-nodemetastasis (TNM) classification. The disease-specific survival rate was calculated according to the Kaplan-Meier method, and differences between the stages were compared according to the log-rank test. Cox multivariate regression analysis was used to evaluate the treatment outcomes.

Results: Recurrence occurred in 20 (23.2%) patients. The 10- year disease specific survival rate among all patients was 89.0%. The pT stage and the post-operative TNM stage had a tendency to reduce survival.

Conclusions: The TNM staging classification is an appropriate staging system for predicting the prognosis. Although most of the patients evaluated in this study had an excellent prognosis, countermeasures against recurrences in the cervical lymph nodes were required.