Thyroid Cancer in Saudi Arabia: A Histopathological and Outcome Study

Abstract EN

Most data on differentiated thyroid cancer (DTC) came from the Western world.

We describe its salient characteristics and outcome from a Middle Eastern country.

Patients and Methods.

We studied all cases of TC seen during a 2-year period (2004-2005) seen at our institution.

Results.

A total of 600 consecutive cases of DTC with a median age at diagnosis of 39 years (5–85) and the female : male ratio of 459 : 141 (76.5% : 23.5%).

The cases included classical papillary thyroid cancer (PTC) in 77%, follicular variant PTC in 13.3%, follicular thyroid cancer in 3.2%, and other rare subtypes 6.5%.

Total or near-total thyroidectomy was performed in 93%, central and/or lateral neck dissection in 64.5% of cases, and radioactive iodine ablation in 82% of cases.

Additional therapies were administered to 154 patients (25.7%).

At a median follow-up period of 7.63 years (0.22–13.1), 318 patients (53.3%) were in excellent response, 147 (24.5%) having an indeterminate response, 55 (9.2%) biochemically incomplete, 33 (5.5%) structurally incomplete, and 27 (4.5%) unclassifiable.

Twenty cases died secondary to DTC (disease-specific mortality 3.3%).

Conclusions.

In Saudi Arabia, DTC is common and occurs at young age and predominantly in females.

Although remission is common, persistent disease is also common but disease-specific mortality is low.