Back so soon? Is early recurrence of papillary thyroid cancer really just persistent disease?

BACKGROUND: Papillary thyroid carcinoma has excellent survival, yet recurrence remains a challenge. We sought to determine the proportion of reoperations performed for persistent, rather than truly recurrent, disease.

METHODS: We conducted a retrospective review of a prospectively maintained database. Patients with papillary thyroid carcinoma who underwent reoperation for disease from 2000-2016 were included. We defined recurrence as disease that developed after a patient had an undetectable thyroglobulin and a negative ultrasonography within 1 year of operation.

RESULTS: A total of 69 patients underwent 92 reoperations. On initial pathology, mean tumor size was 2.6 cm, 51% were multifocal, and 42% had extrathyroidal extension. Half (46%) of the patients underwent a central/lateral neck dissection at the initial operation, and 77% were treated with postoperative radioactive iodine. The median time to first reoperation was 21 months (range, 1-292), and 42% occurred within 1 year. Only 3 operations met criteria for true "recurrence," while 71 operations were categorized as persistent disease.

CONCLUSION: Many reoperations for papillary thyroid carcinoma are for management of persistent disease. More than half of the patients required reoperation within the first 2 years, which suggests strongly that improvements in the preoperative assessment and adequacy of initial operative therapy need to be made to improve the care of patients with thyroid cancer.