Surgical Outcome ResearchMeSS: A novel prognostic scale specific for pediatric well-differentiated thyroid cancer: A population-based, SEER outcomes study
Section snippets
Methods
This study represents a retrospective, cohort study of patients diagnosed with WDTC under the age of 20 years. Patient information was acquired from the SEER database from the National Cancer Institute. The SEER database registers patient data without personal identifiers from a population of approximately 30 million people across specified geographic locations in the United States.2 Medullary or poorly differentiated types of thyroid cancer do not fall under the category of WDTC and,
Results
The patient population in the study had a male to female ratio of 1:4.7 with a median age of 17 years. Seven patients out of the 895 died of causes relating directly to WDTC (0.8%) with an average survival of 3.9 months. The most prevalent patient characteristics in the study were age 15–19 years (76%), female (82%), and Caucasian race (72%). Additionally, the most common tumor characteristics were papillary histology (65%), primary tumor size ≥1 and <4 cm (40%), and regionally invasive (47%)
Discussion
In general, WDTC has an excellent prognosis, especially among the pediatric population. Nonetheless, it is of great importance to identify high-risk patients at the time of diagnosis. Cancer staging and risk assessment are essential aspects of patient management. These not only provide accurate prognostic information for the patient and physician, but also help govern the degree of aggressive treatment necessary for each individual. The objective of this study was to develop a novel algorithm
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