Clinicopathological features of recurrent papillary thyroid cancer

BACKGROUND: To investigate the clinicopathological features of recurrent papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC). METHODS: A retrospective analysis on clinical and pathological data of 34 patients with recurrent PTC was carried out. A total of 281 patients with non-recurrent PTC during the same time period were chosen as the control group. RESULTS: Patients were divided into three groups according to the pathological subtype. The number of patients belonging to Groups 1, 2, and 3 were 28, 154, and 133, respectively. 78 patients underwent partial or whole thyroidectomy, 151 cases underwent thyroidectomy combining neck regional lymph node dissection, and 86 patients underwent thyroidectomy combining modified or radical neck dissection. Univariate analysis showed that PTC recurrence was associated with tumor size, extrathyroid invasion, initial surgery approach, lymph node metastasis, and pathological subtype (P < 0.05). Patient age, gender, complication with Hashimoto's thyroiditis, and multifocality were unrelated to PTC recurrence (P > 0.05). Multivariate analysis showed that initial surgery approach and pathological subtype perform important functions in PTC recurrence (P < 0.001). Initial surgery approach presented a negative correlation with PTC recurrence (β = −0.320, OR = 0.726). The pathological subtype was also related to PTC recurrence (β = 0.923, OR = 2.517). CONCLUSION: PTC patients without neck dissection showed greater likelihood of postoperative recurrence. Patients with the tall cell, columnar cell, diffuse sclerosing, and oncocytic variants showed a higher propensity for PTC recurrence after operation compared with those who did not. Tumor volume, extrathyroid invasion, and multiple lymph node metastases at the time of initial operation were also significantly related to postoperative recurrence. Follow-up supervision must be enhanced after initial treatment to mitigate PTC recurrence in susceptible patients. Effective and standard treatments must be adopted immediately after the discovery of recurrence.