Error in Discussion Section

Abstract

by lobectomy or isthmectomy, recurrence-free survival, disease-specific survival, and overall survival were 97.4%, 100%, and 96.2%, respectively.First, Chow notes that thyroglobulin (Tg) was used as a tumor marker for surveillance and that, although monitoring with Tg following total thyroidectomy is widely practised, its usage or benefit is dubious for lobectomy. We agree that the use of Tg for monitoring for recurrence after thyroid lobectomy is widely practiced but with limited evidence of any benefit. A recent study by Jang et al 2 evaluating postoperative Tg levels in 463 patients with 1 to 4 cm papillary thyroid cancer who underwent lobectomy between January 2005 and December 2012 showed serum Tg levels did not differ significantly between the recurrence and nonrecurrence groups, and there was no tendency for the recurrence group to increase Tg levels.Second, Chow asks if prophylactic ipsilateral central dissection was performed on the patients. Prophylactic ipsilateral central neck dissection was not carried out on any patient.Finally, Chow asks if thyroxine was prescribed in this series to suppress the thyrotropin. Following surgery, thyroid function tests were carried out 6 weeks later. Thyroxine was given if there was evidence of hypothyroidism. We did not routinely carry out thyroid hormone suppression suppression. We try to keep thyroid hormone suppression lower than 2.5 to 3.0. We have previously reported 3 that thyroid hormone suppression significantly increases the risk of postoperative osteoporosis without changing tumor recurrence in patients with low-and intermediate-risk differentiated thyroid cancer.