Endocrine Abstracts

Objective: Patients with differentiated thyroid carcinoma have an increased prevalence of insulin resistance and, diabetes increases the risk of thyroid cancer. In this study we aimed to evaluate tumor features in diabetic and non-diabetic differentiated thyroid cancer patients.

Methods: One hundred patients with differentiated thyroid cancer were enrolled in the study. Twenty one of the 100 patients were diagnosed as diabetic and 79 non-diabetic. All participants underwent a physical examination, detailed history and anthropometric measurements including BMI, waist to hip ratio and blood pressure. The characteristics of the thyroid cancer-histology, tumor size, tumor invasion, nodal and distant metastasis, radioiodine treatment and thyroglobulin levels were measured.

Results: Weight and waist-to-hip ratio were higher in diabetic patients compared to non-diabetic patients. Thyroglobulin levels were lower in diabetic subjects (P<0.05). We observed no significant difference between diabetic and non-diabetic patients in respect for age, gender, TSH levels, tumor invasion, nodal metastasis and persistant disease. The differences in risk by groups for the papillary and folicular types were not significant (P=0.888).

Conclusion: Although diabetes has been associated with increased risk of thyroid cancer, presence of diabetes was found not to be associated with more aggressive tumor features.

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