title: Thyroid Cancer in Saudi Arabia: A Histopathological and Outcome Study.
abstract: Most data on differentiated thyroid cancer (DTC) came from the Western world. We describe its salient characteristics and outcome from a Middle Eastern country.Patients and Methods. We studied all cases of TC seen during a 2-year period (2004-2005) seen at our institution.Results. A total of 600 consecutive cases of DTC with a median age at diagnosis of 39 years (5-85) and the female : male ratio of 459 : 141 (76.5% : 23.5%). The cases included classical papillary thyroid cancer (PTC) in 77%, follicular variant PTC in 13.3%, follicular thyroid cancer in 3.2%, and other rare subtypes 6.5%. Total or near-total thyroidectomy was performed in 93%, central and/or lateral neck dissection in 64.5% of cases, and radioactive iodine ablation in 82% of cases. Additional therapies were administered to 154 patients (25.7%). At a median follow-up period of 7.63 years (0.22-13.1), 318 patients (53.3%) were in excellent response, 147 (24.5%) having an indeterminate response, 55 (9.2%) biochemically incomplete, 33 (5.5%) structurally incomplete, and 27 (4.5%) unclassifiable. Twenty cases died secondary to DTC (disease-specific mortality 3.3%).Conclusions. In Saudi Arabia, DTC is common and occurs at young age and predominantly in females. Although remission is common, persistent disease is also common but disease-specific mortality is low.
authors.affiliation: King Faisal Specialist Hospital & Research Centre, Department of Medicine, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia; Department of Molecular Oncology, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
authors.forename: Ali S
authors.identifier: 0000-0003-4294-3624
authors.initials: AS
authors.lastname: Alzahrani
authors.affiliation: Research Centre, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
authors.forename: Haneen
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Alomar
authors.affiliation: Research Centre, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
authors.forename: Nada
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Alzahrani