Endocrine Abstracts

Introduction: Differentiated thyroid cancers are rare (less than 1% of cancers), and generally have a positive prognosis: Their mortality rate increases steadily with age.

Objective: To assess the biologic behavior of differentiated thyroid carcinoma in patients aged 65 years or older and evaluated factors that influenced long-term survival\.

Patients and methods: We conducted a retrospective study of elderly patients (>65 years) followed for papillary thyroid carcinoma at the endocrinology department of Ibn ROCHD University Hospital of Casablanca from 1986 to 2019, based on clinical features, histology and their evolutionary profile. Statistical analysis was univariate for all variables, using SPSS software version 22.0.0.

Results: Among the 713 patients treated for papillary thyroid carcinoma, advanced age was found in 90 patients with an average age of 68.7 years (65–81), a sex ratio F/H: 6.5 (78 women, 12 men), and a history of familial thyroid neoplasia in 29% of cases. The most common clinical symptom was a solitary nodule (31.2% of cases). All patients underwent total thyroidectomy with lymph node dissection in 33%. Complementary totalization by iratherapy was indicated in 97.7% of patients. Papillary carcinoma with vesicular differentiation was the predominant histological type (59.8%), classified as high risk in 36% of cases. The follow-up (average of 6.8 years) includes 34% of locoregional metastases, and distant ones in 42% of patients, with a survival rate of 46%.

Conclusion: Thyroid cancers in the elderly patients are infrequent, characterized by their advanced stage at the diagnosis’ time, its prognosis does not seem to be influenced by just histological diagnosis, but also by its association with other prognostic factors: age, female predominance and locoregional or distant metastases.