Endocrine Abstracts

Introduction: Although numerous noninvasive markers are being used in order to determine preoperative thyroid cancer risk in patients with multi-nodular goiter, none of them are optimal. The objective of this study was to compare retrospectively the TSH level between two groups of subjects who underwent total thyroidectomy for a nodule and whose final histology was benign or malignant.

Methods: Our study included 208 patients that underwent thyroidectomy due to nodular goiter in our hospital between 2008 and 2010. While differentiated thyroid cancer (DTC) was established in 151 patients, pathology of 57 patients was detected to be benign. Patients were evaluated in terms of age, gender, and preoperative TSH levels.

Results: There was no significant difference between the two groups in terms of age, sex, family history of thyroid disease. Preoperative TSH level was established as 1.63 in the group with DTC and as 1.61 in the control group (P:0.923). A correlation was not established between the tumor size and TSH (P:0.79).

Conclusion: There are studies in literature that established positive correlation between elevated preoperative TSH and DTC. In our study, a correlation was not found between preoperative TSH level and DTC with tumor diameter. The reason for this may be the fact that patients with subclinical hypothyroidism and subclinical hyperthyroidism were included in the study.

Declaration of interest: The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest that could be perceived as prejudicing the impartiality of the research project.

Funding: This research did not receive any specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sector.