Endocrine Abstracts

Aim: To investigate the frequency of thyroid carcinoma and its subtypes in one region over three decades.

Material and methods: Data retrospectively collected from a tissue bank where all hospitals in a region with a little above 1 million inhabitants should send samples from all operated tumors, from 1981 to 2010.

Results: From 1981 to 1990 there where 156 thyroid cancers; 206 from 1991 through 2000 and 362 from 2001 through 2010, with a 132% rise from the first decade to the last one. Papillary cancer accounted for just 42% in the first decade, rising to 65% in the 2000s. There was also an absolute 50% rise in follicular cancer incidence, although the relative percentage fell from 40% in the first decade to 26% in the last one. Medullary cancer incidence rised by 150%, but relative percentage remained stable between 3 and 4%. Frequency of other rare types of thyroid neoplasms such as anaplastic, lymphoma or squamous carcinoma remained stable.

Conclusions: Thyroid carcinoma incidence is rising, mainly due to a rise in papillary carcinoma, as previously reported, but we also observed an increased incidence in follicular cancer.