Patient Age Is Significantly Related to the Progression of Papillary Microcarcinoma of the Thyroid Under Observation

We showed previously that subclinical low-risk papillary thyroid microcarcinoma (PTMC) could be observed without immediate surgery. Patient age is an important prognostic factor of clinical papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC). In this study, we investigated how patient age influences the observation of low-risk PTMC.

Between 1993 and 2011, 1235 patients with low-risk PTMC chose observation without immediate surgery. They were followed periodically with ultrasound examinations. These patients were enrolled in this study. We divided them into three subsets based on age at the beginning of observation: young (