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Risk factors associated with disease-specific mortality in papillary thyroid cancer patients with distant metastases

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Abstract

Purpose

Papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC) is among the most curable cancer types. Even though uncommon, some patients present distant metastatic disease at diagnosis or during the follow-up and most of them have long-term survival. However, there continues to be controversies regarding what clinicopathological features are associated with mortality in these patients. This paper evaluates the factors related to poor disease-specific survival (DSS) in patients with metastatic PTC.

Methods

A retrospective cohort study included PTC patients with distant metastasis from a tertiary public oncological center. Clinicopathological features, treatment modalities, and outcome were reviewed.

Results

Between 1986 and 2014, 108 patients were diagnosed with metastatic PTC. In the multivariate analysis male sex (HR = 2.65; 95%CI: 1.08–6.53; P = 0.033), radioiodine refractory disease (HR = 9.50; 95%CI: 1.23–73.38; P = 0.031) and metastasis at multiple sites (HR = 5.91; 95%CI: 1.80–19.32; P = 0.003) were independent risk factors for death in patients with metastatic PTC.

Conclusion

Male patients with metastatic PTC, with radioiodine refractory disease and metastasis at multiple sites have a high risk of death.

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Data availability

The data that support the findings of this study are available on request from the corresponding author.

Code availability

The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Funding

Funding for this study comes from the National Brazilian Government Research Agency (Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico – CNPq – grant number 407520/2018-0).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Head and Neck Surgery Department, Instituto do Câncer do Estado de São Paulo/Hospital das Clínicas da Faculdade de Medicina da Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil

    Kamilla Schmitz Nunes, Leandro Luongo Matos, Beatriz Godoi Cavalheiro, Felipe Ferraz Magnabosco, Marco Aurélio Kulcsar, Luiz Paulo Kowalski & Ana Kober Leite

  2. Head and Neck Surgery Department, Hospital das Clínicas da Faculdade de Medicina da Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil

    Marcos Roberto Tavares

  3. Endocrinology Department, Instituto do Câncer do Estado de São Paulo/Hospital das Clínicas da Faculdade de Medicina da Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil

    Ana Oliveira Hoff

Authors
  1. Kamilla Schmitz Nunes
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  8. Luiz Paulo Kowalski
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  9. Ana Kober Leite
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Contributions

KSN: data collection, analyses of results, paper preparation. LLM: statistical analyses, analyses of results, paper revision. FFM: data collection, analyses of results, paper revision. MRT: analyses of results, paper revision. BGC: analyses of results, paper revision. MAK: analyses of results, paper revision. AAFH: analyses of results, paper revision. LPK: study design, analyses of results, paper revision. AKL: study design, data revision, analyses of results, paper preparation.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Kamilla Schmitz Nunes.

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All the authors involved in this study give their consent for this article to be published in Endocrine - International Journal of Basic and Clinical Endocrinology.

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Written informed consent was obtained from all subjects of the study.

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Ethical approval for this study was obtained from institutional review board (CAAE: 35878820.0.0000.0068).

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Nunes, K.S., Matos, L.L., Cavalheiro, B.G. et al. Risk factors associated with disease-specific mortality in papillary thyroid cancer patients with distant metastases. Endocrine 75, 814–822 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12020-021-02901-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12020-021-02901-z

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