Therapeutic outcomes of papillary thyroid cancer patients in different risk groups

Objective: The objective of this study was to determine the therapeutic outcome of papillary thyroid cancer (PTC) patients in different risk groups in one institute. Methods: A total of 1,759 PTC patients were categorized into low-(n = 1,123), intermediate-(n = 75), and high-risk (n = 561) groups according to tumor-node-metastasis (TNM) stage. Results: Of the patients, 15.1% presented with lymph node metastases, and 4.6% presented with distant metastases at the time of thyroid operation. After 8.0 ± 0.1 years of follow-up, 73 (4.2%) patients died of thyroid cancer. Tumor size, local invasion, and lymph node metastases adversely influenced recurrence and survival. Of the patients in the 3 groups, 9 (0.8%), 8 (10.7%), and 56 (10.0%) died of thyroid cancer, respectively. In addition, 88 (7.8%), 14 (18.7%), and 144 (25.8%) patients showed recurrence during the follow-up period. Patients with highly aggressive histological patterns showed increased recurrence and cancer mortality compared with the low-risk group; otherwise, values were not higher than those of the high-risk group. Conclusions: The cancer-related mortality was nearly 10% in the intermediate-and high-risk groups, and the patients in these groups required aggressive surgical and postoperative adjuvant therapies.