The Increase in Thyroid Cancer Incidence is not only due to Papillary Microcarcinomas: a 40-year Study in 1 778 Patients

Abstract

The increase of thyroid cancer in this cohort was mainly due to tumors larger than 1 cm and also to smaller in size but invasive thyroid tumors. This increase outnumbers the increase in papillary thyroid microcarcinomas.

Association between the increase in incidence of papillary thyroid carcinoma in Crete and exposure to radioactive agents

“…As observed in Table I , all three factors examined were found to be statistically significant for the distribution of PTC in Crete. Women presented higher risk (ExpB = 2.34; 95% CI = 1.359-3.028; p < 0.001) than men, that is compatible to the current literature 13 14 , while, for every year of increase in age, the risk for PTC increases almost 2.19 times (95% CI = 1.092-4.517; p = 0.04). Finally, the gamma-ray was determined as a significant risk factor that has a proportional correlation with the case distribution ( p = 0.03).…”

Geospatial and Temporal Analysis of Thyroid Cancer Incidence in a Rural Population

“…Some studies suggest enhanced diagnostic scrutiny and better detection of subclinical cancers result in widespread overdiagnosis and thus not a true increase in incidence (4,8,(10)(11)(12)(13)(14)(15). Other studies note that an increase in both large tumors and microcarcinomas as well as a change in relative frequencies of histological types implicate other contributing factors (1,(16)(17)(18)(19). Of note, recent reports of aggressive, metastatic microcarcinomas of the thyroid that correlate with the risk of second cancers (20) suggest that microcarcinomas once considered subclinical might emerge as important new healthcare concerns and reflect an important dimension of the increase in thyroid cancer incidence.…”

Papillary Thyroid Carcinomas in Patients under 21 Years of Age: Clinical and Histologic Characteristics of Tumors ≤10 mm

“…We observed similar results in our recently published study of 1778 adult patients with thyroid cancer diagnosed in the same time period. 8 This finding is difficult to explain. Regarding multifocality, it is not clear whether the presence of multiple foci represents the result of an intrathyroidal tumor spread or whether they are independent and new primary tumor foci which appear in the same patient in a different time.…”

“…The prevalence of papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC) in adults has increased during the last decades, [5][6][7][8] largely because of earlier detection of small size (#10 mm) PTCs called microcarcinomas (papillary thyroid microcarcinoma [PTM]), incidentally found by ultrasonography and fine needle aspiration cytology or after thyroidectomy for benign thyroid disease. [9][10][11] In different published studies, PTM represent 1%-35% of all cancers.…”