Thyroid cancer in pediatric age group: An institutional experience and review of the literature

Very few have been reported on children with differentiated thyroid cancer (DTC), although 15% of them are diagnosed below 20 years of age. Children with DTC present with more advanced disease; however, they have a more favorable outcome. In this paper, we aimed to present the data in our institution on pediatric DTC patients, making an emphasis on the risk factors of metastasis and recurrence, as well as to the outcome of treatment. Clinical data of 50 pediatric patients referred to our institution for radioiodine treatment (RAI) between 1976 and 2010 were obtained. Papillary carcinoma was the most common histopathologic diagnosis (36 patients) followed by papillary carcinoma with follicular variant (10 patients). Multifocality was reported in 66% of the pathology reports. At the time of diagnosis 35 patients had regional lymph node metastasis, 18 had local invasion, and 11 had distant metastasis. No distant metastasis was present in patients with unifocal disease (P=0.018). The mean duration of follow-up was 77.6±62.7 months. Patients with local disease had longer disease-free survival than patients with distant metastasis (P=0.033). Despite the small number of patients, the follow-up was relatively long and the presented results confirmed overall good prognosis in children with DTC. Copyright © 2013 by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.