Endocrine Abstracts

Objective: Our aim was to determine the prevalence and clinicopathological characteristics of thyroid cancers in the dialysis population and to evaluate potential risk factors.

Design: We performed a retrospective analysis of our end-stage renal disease (ESRD) patients on dialysis and thyroidectomized patients without ESRD (2000–2006). Then we compared the data of thyroid cancer patients on dialysis (n=9) with the data of patients who had histopathologically verified benign thyroid disease on dialysis (n=23) and with the histopathological data of thyroid cancer patients without ESRD.

Main outcome: Papillary thyroid cancer (PTC) was the only histotype which was found in 9 of 420 (2.1%) ESRD patients on dialysis. Multifocal PTC was found in 8 of 9 patients, of them 4 were follicular variant of PTC (FVPTC). Two patients had lymphatic metastasis at diagnosis. Eight PTCs were classified as TNM stage I and one as stage II. Among the analyzed factors, age (r=0.374, P=0.01) and duration of dialysis (r=0.436, P=0.007) showed a significant positive correlation with the occurrence of thyroid cancer.

Conclusions: We conclude that the prevalence of thyroid cancer in patients undergoing dialysis was not higher than background population. Age and duration of dialysis showed a significant positive correlation with the occurrence of thyroid cancer in patients on dialysis. Among the histotypes, there may be higher percentage of PTC, FVPTC and multifocality in dialysis patients. The effect of these characteristics on prognosis of thyroid cancer in dialysis patients is needed to be further evaluated.