The clinical features of papillary thyroid cancer in Hashimoto’s thyroiditis patients from an area with a high prevalence of Hashimoto’s disease

Abstract

Abstract Background The goal of this study was to identify the clinicopathological factors of co-existing papillary thyroid cancer (PTC) in patients with Hashimoto���s thyroiditis (HT) and provide information to aid in the diagnosis of such patients. Methods This study included 6109 patients treated in a university-based tertiary care cancer hospital over a 3-year period. All of the patients were categorised based on their final diagnosis. Several clinicopathological factors, such as age, gender, nodular size, invasive status, central compartment lymph node metastasis (CLNM) and serum thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH) level, were compared between the various groups of patients. Results There were 653 patients with a final diagnosis of HT. More PTC was found in those with HT (58.3%; 381 of 653) than those without HT (2416 of 5456; 44.3%; p Conclusion PTC and HT have a close relationship in this region of highly prevalent HT disease. Based on the results of our study, we hypothesise that long-term HT leads to elevated serum TSH, which is the real risk factor for thyroid cancer.

Keywords

• Papillary thyroid carcinoma
• Thyroid-stimulating hormone
• Hashimoto’s thyroiditis