Differences and Analogies in Thyroid Cancer Discovered Incidentally or by Thyroid Related Screening: A Multicenter Study

Overview

Journal Eur Thyroid J

Date 2025 Jan 22

PMID 39841635

Authors

Laura Croce

Rosaria Maddalena Ruggeri

Camilla Virili

Carlo Cappelli

Marsida Teliti

Pietro Costa

Spyridon Chytiris

Antonio Nicocia

Francesca Coperchini

Maria Flavia Bagaglini

Flavia Magri

Alfredo Campenni

Mario Rotondi

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Objective: The prevalence of Thyroid-Cancer (TC) has increased worldwide and an association with metabolic and cardio-vascular disorders has been reported. Moreover, an increasing percentage of patients are currently diagnosed incidentally through non-thyroid related imaging for other clinical conditions. Our aim was to assess the prevalence of Thyroid-Related (TD) versus Incidental (ID) pre-surgery reasons leading to TC diagnosis and to compare the two groups in terms of clinical characteristics, size and severity of TC at presentation and rate of non-thyroid cancers and cardiovascular/metabolic comorbidities.

Design: we performed a retrospective cohort study in three high-volume hospital-based centers for thyroid diseases (Pavia, Latina and Messina) in Italy.

Patients: Consecutive patients with TC Measurements: data on pre-surgery reasons leading to TC diagnosis, age, sex, BMI, presence of cardio-metabolic comorbidities and non-thyroid cancer.

Results: among the 327 enrolled subjects the diagnosis of TC was prompted by thyroid-related reasons in 262 (80.1%, TD group) and incidental in 65 (19.9%, ID group). The ID group patients were more frequently males, significantly older and with a higher BMI than the TD group ones, they had a higher rate of non-thyroidal cancers and cardiovascular/metabolic comorbidities. No significant differences could be observed in terms of TC histotype, cancer size, extra-thyroidal extension, lymph-node metastases, AJCC Staging or ATA Risk stratification.

Conclusions: biological features of TC are similar in the TD and ID groups, but patients in the two groups display significant differences regarding their clinical features.

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