Papillary thyroid cancer: prognostic factors

Abstract

Globally, there is a steady increase in the incidence of thyroid cancer, mainly due to papillary cancer. There are a lot of factors caused by neoplastic process which determine the outcome of the disease. The main considered factors are age, sex, extrathyroidal tumor expansion, incomplete removal of the tumor, the size of the primary malignancy, peritumoral vascular invasion, the presence of regional and distant metastases, as well as the degree of differentiation of the tumor. To date there is a range of systematic scales: TNM, EORTC, MACIS, AMES, AGES, etc. According to the used prognostic scale risk groups are formed which determine causal and specific survival or risk of dying from cancer in each group. More often unfavorable outcome is possible in patients at high risk who are experiencing adverse morphological variants of papillary thyroid cancer as well as in patients with a massive extrathyroidal tumor expansion and the presence of distant metastases. Patients with intrathyroid tumors diagnosed at a young age, without regional and distant metastases, have positive prognosis, especially against the background of autoimmune thyroiditis.