Objective: Differentiated thyroid cancers are the most common endocrine cancers and their frequency is increasing with the increase in imaging possibilities. In various malignancies; Even in the absence of liver metastases, it was determined that AST value increased compared to ALT due to increased metabolism, tissue damage and rapid tumor turnover. This rate is known as the De Ritis rate, and in our study, we planned to evaluate whether there is a relationship between histopathological subtype, multifocality, disease stage and risk group and AST/ALT (De Ritis) ratio in early stage thyroid cancers.
Method: A total of 154 patients diagnosed with differentiated thyroid cancer in our clinic between 2016 and 2019 were included in the study. The AST/ALT ratios of the patients in the preoperative period were recorded. Tumor staging of each patient was performed according to the American Joint Cancer Committee (AJCC) 8 by evaluating the postoperative pathology reports. The correlation between the patients' preoperative De Ritis rates and postoperative staging was evaluated.
Results: In our study, the mean De Ritis value of the patients was found to be 1.18. The rate of patients with De Ritis rate ≥1.5 was 15.9%. There was no statistically significant difference between preoperative De Ritis rate and histopathological subtype, vascular invasion, capsule invasion, tumor diameter, lymph node involvement and tumor stage.
Conclusion: In our study it was found that preoperative De Ritis ratio was not associated with disease stage and risk status in early stage differentiated thyroid cancers. Additional studies are needed for its importance in advanced differentiated thyroid cancers.