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Clinical course and outcome of differentiated thyroid cancer patients with pregnancy after diagnosis of distant metastasis

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Abstract

Purpose

There is no sufficient data about the clinical course and outcome in thyroid cancer patients who become pregnant after diagnosis of distant metastasis (DM). The current study was conducted to collect information regarding the clinical and reproductive characteristics, and outcomes in thyroid cancer patients who became pregnant after being diagnosed with DM.

Methods

Records of 125 differentiated thyroid cancer (DTC) patients with age ≤45 years at DM diagnosis who had visited Ito Hospital from January 2005 to June 2021 were retrospectively reviewed. Among those 125 patients, 28 who became pregnant after DM diagnosis were classified as pregnancy group, and the remained 97 patients were classified as comparator group.

Results

In pregnancy group, the median age at malignancy diagnosis, DM diagnosis, and first pregnancy after DM diagnosis was 25 years (range, 4–41 years), 27 years (range, 11–41 years), and 32 years (range, 25–45 years), respectively. Fifty-five pregnancies and 40 live births were reported. Other pregnancy outcomes were miscarriage (n = 14) and induced abortion (n = 1). The 10-year progression-free survival (PFS) rates of pregnant and comparator group were 92.1% and 74.4%, respectively (p = 0.018). The multivariate analysis showed that multiple 131I treatment was independent negative prognostic factor for PFS (p = 0.046).

Conclusions

DTC patients with age ≤45 years at DM diagnosis had good survival even though they became pregnant. Our results add to the information required for counseling thyroid cancer patients who have concerns about their fertility in the future.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Enago (https://www.enago.jp/) for editing this manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Surgery, Ito Hospital, 4-3-6, Jingumae, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo, 150-8308, Japan

    Haruhiko Yamazaki, Kiminori Sugino, Kenichi Matsuzu, Chie Masaki, Junko Akaishi, Kiyomi Yamada Hames, Chisato Tomoda, Akifumi Suzuki, Keiko Ohkuwa, Wataru Kitagawa, Mitsuji Nagahama & Koichi Ito

  2. Department of Internal Medicine, Ito Hospital, 4-3-6, Jingumae, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo, 150-8308, Japan

    Jaeduk Yoshimura Noh

  3. Department of Pathology, Ito Hospital, 4-3-6, Jingumae, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo, 150-8308, Japan

    Ryohei Katoh

  4. Department of Surgery, Yokohama City University School of Medicine, 3-9 Fukuura, Kanazawa-ku, Yokohama, Kanagawa, Japan

    Yasushi Rino

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  1. Haruhiko Yamazaki
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  2. Kiminori Sugino
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  12. Wataru Kitagawa
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  13. Mitsuji Nagahama
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  15. Koichi Ito
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Haruhiko Yamazaki.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

Ethical approval

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the Ethics Committee of Ito Hospital (approval number 336) and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Yamazaki, H., Sugino, K., Noh, J.Y. et al. Clinical course and outcome of differentiated thyroid cancer patients with pregnancy after diagnosis of distant metastasis. Endocrine 76, 78–84 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12020-021-02969-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12020-021-02969-7

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