Abstract
Objectives: Aim was to evaluate clinicopathological and treatment outcomes of diffuse sclerosing variant papillary thyroid carcinoma (DSV-PTC).
Design: Retrospective study
Setting: Two major tertiary care hospitals of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
Material: Medical records of 1192 patients with confirmed papillary thyroid cancers (PTC), who were treated or followed up during the period of July 2000 and December 2012 were reviewed.
Main outcome measure: To evaluate the clinicopathologic features and treatment outcomes of patients with DSV-PTC and perform comparative analysis of DSV-PTC with classic-variant PTC (CV-PTC).
Results: A total of 44 cases (3.7%) of DSV-PTC were identified. DSV-PTC patients were younger than their CV-PTC (p = 0.001). The mean tumor size was larger in DSV-PTC as compared to CV-PTC (p < 0.0001). Advanced pathologic tumor (pT) stage and positive lymph nodes were more often present in DSV-PTC than in CV-PTC (p < 0.0001 and p < 0.0001 respectively). Median follow-up was 8.05 years (range: 1.62-11.4). Ten-year disease-specific survival (DSS) rates were lower in DSV-PTC (74.4%) than in CV-PTC (89.4%); p = 0.001.
Conclusion: DSV-PTC is more aggressive variant as compared to CV-PTC, and is associated with inferior DSS rates. An aggressive surgical approach followed by radioiodine therapy is warranted for these patients.