Therapeutic Outcomes of Patients with Multifocal Papillary Thyroid Microcarcinomas and Larger Tumors

Abstract

A retrospective review of 626 patients with multifocal papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC) including 147 patients (23.5%) with multifocal papillary thyroid microcarcinoma (PTMC) from a total of 2,536 patients with PTC who visited the Chang Gung Medical Center in Linkou, Taiwan, was performed. A comparison of the clinical features between 626 multifocal and 1,910 solitary PTC cases showed that patients in the multifocal PTC group were older and had a smaller mean tumor size, a more advanced tumor-node-metastasis (TNM) stage, and a higher percentage of nonremission status compared to patients in the solitary PTC group. Of the 626 patients with multifocal PTC, the group with larger tumors showed a more advanced TNM stage, a higher percentage of lymph node metastasis and soft tissue invasion, and a higher nonremission rate compared to the multifocal PTMC group. Of the 626 patients with multifocal PTC, 25 patients (4%) died during a mean follow-up period of 7.1 ± 5.3 years. Kaplan-Meier survival curves showed a significantly lower survival rate associated with multifocal PTMC compared to that with solitary PTMC.

Clinical and ultrasonographic features of medullary thyroid microcarcinomas compared with papillary thyroid microcarcinomas: a retrospective analysis

“…PTCs often arise as multiple tumor foci, which are considered the result of multiple synchronous primary tumors arising from independent clones. The incidence of multifocal PTMCs has been reported as 23.5-36.1% [11][12][13]. In our study, multiple PTMCs were detected in 29.81% (31/104) of cases, which was higher than the corresponding percentage in the MTMC group.…”

Clinical and ultrasonographic features of medullary thyroid microcarcinomas compared with papillary thyroid microcarcinomas: a retrospective analysis

“…PTCs often arise as multiple tumor foci, which are considered as the result of multiple synchronous primary tumors arising from independent clones. The incidence of multifocal PTMCs has been reported as 23.5%-36.1% [11][12][13]. In our study, multiple PTMCs was detected in 29.81% (31/104) cases, which was higher than that in MTMCs group.…”

The occurrence of and predictive factors for multifocality and bilaterality in patients with papillary thyroid microcarcinoma

“…Multifocality and bilaterality are common features in PTMC and are considered risk factors for disease recurrence. [4,5] According to the observations from Lu et al, [6] multifocality may arise from intrathyroidal metastases from a single cancer cell clone or from multiple independent origins. This latter hypothesis was investigated by some modern molecular techniques, which confirmed that PTMCs are multiple synchronous primary tumors arising from autonomic clones.…”