Childhood Thyroid Cancer Treatment (PDQ®)–Health Professional Version

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Changes to This Summary (04/09/2018)

The PDQ cancer information summaries are reviewed regularly and updated as new information becomes available. This section describes the latest changes made to this summary as of the date above.

Incidence

Added text to state that in the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) database, the papillary subtype was the most common, followed by the follicular variant subtype, the follicular subtype, and the medullary subtype. As pediatric patients reached the ages of 15 to 19 years, the incidences of the papillary and follicular variant subtypes increased. An analysis of medullary thyroid cancer data revealed that the incidence was the highest in the age group of 0 to 4 years and declined at older ages.

Molecular Features and Tumor Characteristics

Added text to state that the AGK-BRAF gene fusion was identified in 3 of 30 patients younger than 18 years with sporadic papillary thyroid carcinoma (cited Cordioli et al. as reference 7).

Treatment of Papillary and Follicular Thyroid Carcinoma

Revised text to state that pediatric thyroid surgery is ideally completed by a surgeon who has experience performing endocrine procedures in children and in a hospital with the full spectrum of pediatric specialty care.

Added text to state that because of the increased morbidity associated with central lymph node dissection, it is important to carefully individualize each case on the basis of the risks and benefits of the extent of dissection (cited Machens et al. as reference 4).

Treatment of Medullary Thyroid Carcinoma

Added text to state that investigators have concluded that prophylactic central node dissection should not be performed on patients with hereditary medullary thyroid cancer if their basal calcitonin serum levels are lower than 40 pg/mL (cited Machens et al. as reference 5).

This summary is written and maintained by the PDQ Pediatric Treatment Editorial Board, which is editorially independent of NCI. The summary reflects an independent review of the literature and does not represent a policy statement of NCI or NIH. More information about summary policies and the role of the PDQ Editorial Boards in maintaining the PDQ summaries can be found on the About This PDQ Summary and PDQ® - NCI's Comprehensive Cancer Database pages.

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