Comparison of clinicopathological features between children and adults with differentiated thyroid carcinoma

Abstract

Objective: To compare the clinicopathological features between children ( 18 years) and ≤ adults with differentiated thyroid carcinoma (DTC). Subject and method: A descriptive study on 50 children and 158 adults with DTC at the 108 Military Central Hospital from January 2015 to March 2022. We collected the clinicopathological features and evaluated the difference in these features between children and adult groups. Result: The rate of DTC in children was 0.65% of all DTC patients. In both groups, female patients accounted for the majority (66% and 84.2%, respectively). Papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC) was the most common subtype (92% and 97.5%). The pediatric DTC patients had higher rates of large tumor size, extrathyroidal extension, vascular invasion, intrathyroidal spread, and lymph node metastasis (LNM). There was no difference between the two groups regarding bilaterality, multifocality, tumor necrosis, and chronic thyroiditis. Conclusion: DTC in the children group revealed more aggressive patterns than DTC in the adults group, with larger tumor size, higher rate of multifocality, extrathyroidal invasion, and LNM.