PET/CT of Thyroid Neoplasms

Abstract

Thyroid carcinoma is one of the most common endocrine malignant tumors and usually occurs in women, and its morbidity has been on the rise in recent years. In 2015, data from the Chinese National Central Cancer Registry (NCCR) showed that the morbidity of thyroid cancer in China in 2011 was 10.32 out of 100,000 and there were 67,800 new cases of thyroid cancer (416,300 males and 189,600 females), accounting for 6.02% of the new cases of malignant tumors. In 2012, the global cancer data showed 229,900 new cases of thyroid cancer in women worldwide, ranking eighth among female cancers. A study in the United States predicted that thyroid cancer will become the third most common cancer in women by 2019. In the past few decades, the overall incidence rate of thyroid cancer in either males or females has been increasing and shows a trend of continuous increase. The trend of increase is seen mainly in papillary thyroid carcinoma but rarely in undifferentiated cancers. In contrast, the overall disease-specific mortality remained unchanged or even decreased, indicating an increase in the proportion of low-invasive subtypes and improved medical care that allows tumors to be detected early.