What has changed in the last 20 years in the postoperative specimen findings of the papillary thyroid cancer cases? A retrospective analysis.

Objectives: In this study, it was aimed to investigate the changes in surgical approaches and histopathological evaluation of the tumor according to years of patients who were operated on with the diagnosis of thyroid papillary cancer (PTC) in our center in the last 20 years.

Material and methods: The records of the cases who underwent thyroidectomy in our department were divided into four groups of five years each and analyzed retrospectively. Demographic characteristics, surgical procedures, presence of chronic lymphocytic thyroiditis, histopathological features of tumour and hospital stay of the cases in the groups were evaluated. Based on tumor size, PTCs were classified into five subgroups. PTCs of 10 (mm) or less were accepted as papillary thyroid microcarcinoma (PTMC).

Results: There was a significant increase in PTC and multifocal tumors in the groups over the years (p <0.001). There was a significant increase between the groups in the presence of chronic lymphocytic thyroiditis (p <0.001). In contrast, the total number of metastatic lymph nodes (p= 0.486) and the largest metastatic lymph node size were similar between the groups (p> 0.999). In our study, it was observed that there was a significant increase over the years in both the total/near-total thyroidectomy cases and the number of cases with a postoperative hospital stay of one day (p <0.001).

Conclusion: In the present study, it was found that papillary cancer sizes decreased gradually and the frequency of papillary microcarcinoma increased gradually in last 20 years. Also, a significant increase was detected in the rates of total/near-total thyroidectomy and lateral neck dissection over the years.