Variation in the management of thyroid cancer

Little is known about practice patterns in thyroid cancer, a cancer that is increasing in incidence.

We sought to identify aspects of thyroid cancer management that have the greatest variation.

We surveyed 944 physicians involved in thyroid cancer care from 251 hospitals affiliated with the US National Cancer Database. Physicians were asked questions in the following four domains: thyroid surgery, radioactive iodine use, thyroid hormone replacement postsurgery, and long-term thyroid cancer management. We calculated the ratio of observed variation to hypothetical maximum variation under the assumed distribution of the response. Ratios closer to 1 indicate greater variation.

We had a 66% response rate. We found variation in multiple aspects of thyroid cancer management, including the role of central lymph node dissections (variation, 0.99; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.98-1.00), the role of pretreatment scans before radioactive iodine treatment (variation, 1.00; 95% CI, 0.98-1.00), and all aspects of long-term thyroid cancer management, including applications of ultrasound (variation, 0.97; 95% CI, 0.93-0.99) and radioactive iodine scans (variation, 0.99; 95% CI, 0.97-1.00). For the management of small thyroid cancers, variation exists in all domains, including optimal extent of surgery (variation, 0.91; 95% CI, 0.88-0.94) and the role of both radioactive iodine treatment (variation, 0.91; 95% CI, 0.89-0.93) and suppressive doses of thyroid hormone replacement (variation, 1.00; 95% CI, 0.99-1.00).

We identified areas of variation in thyroid cancer management. To reduce the variation and improve the management of thyroid cancer, there is a need for more research and more research dissemination.