Role of Thyroglobulin Doubling Time in Differentiated Thyroid Cancer and Its Relationship with Demographic-Histopathologic Risk Factors and ¹⁸F-Fluorodeoxyglucose Positron Emission Tomography/Computed Tomography Parameters

The role of thyroglobulin doubling time in differentiated thyroid cancer: a meta-analysis

“…Four studies were used to determine hierarchical summary receiver-operating characteristics curve (HSROC) (5,6,11,18). The Area Under the Curve (AUC) was 0.86 [95%CI: 0.83; 0.89] (Figure 2).…”

“…Samples of seven studies were prevalently composed by patients with papillary thyroid cancer for a total of 910 patients (4, 6, 12, 14-17), while the remaining four studies were prevalently composed by patients with follicular thyroid carcinoma for a total of 343 patients (5,11,13,18). Six studies had a sample size lower than 100 patients (5,13,(15)(16)(17)(18), while five studies had a larger sample size that ranged between 102 (6) and 426 (4) patients. The percentage of males/females ranged between 18.1% (4) and 59.6% (15).…”

“…Two studies used at least three Tg level measurements (5, 13), while the remaining three studies used respectively two (6,17) and five (18) Tg level measurements. Three studies (13,14,18) were carried out in Germany, three in Japan (4,12,16), one in Switzerland (6), France (17), Turkey (5), USA (15), and Italy (11), respectively. The median follow-up was 6.1 years ranging between 157 days (16) to 11.1 years (15).…”

“…Tg doubling time (Tg-DT) has been demonstrated as a valuable biomarker to predict loco-regional recurrences, distant metastases, and survival independently from classical prognostic factors (e.g., TNM stage, age, and gender) (4). Recently, the Tg-DT was also proved useful to predict results of 2-[18F]fluoro-2-deoxy-D-glucose (2-[18F]FDG) positron emission tomography/computed tomography (PET/CT) in patients with detectable Tg levels who had a negative radioiodine whole-body scintigraphy (WBS) (5,6). Despite relevant literature, however, recent management guidelines contain little specific advice on the use and interpretation criteria of Tg-DT and, consequently, Tg-DT is sparsely adopted in clinical practice.…”

Correlation between metabolic uptake of F-18-FDG-PET/computed tomography and thyroglobulin level in differentiated thyroid cancer patients with suspected recurrence

“…Maximum standardized uptake value (SUVmax) is the most widely used quantitative parameter for measuring tumor cellular density [12]. SUVmax is a relative measurement of the amount of fluorodeoxyglucose activity found in one voxel compared to the total injected activity; however, SUVmax is a way of calculation primarily based on the assumption that the injected dose is distributed uniformly at some point in the body and may change due to many factors, including the size of the tumor (due to the partial volume effect), affected patient motion, acquisition time after injection, and image reconstruction technique [13]. We try to evaluate if there is a correlation between the metabolic parameters of PET/CT; SUVmax and lesion/liver ratio of the main lesion detected at F18-FDG-PET/CT and the thyroglobulin level in patients with DTC elevated serum thyroglobulin or positive Tg-Ab levels and negative I-131 WBS.…”