Assessment of preoperative thyroglobulin levels in papillary thyroid cancer

The papillary thyroid cancers (PTCs) are the most common cancer of endocrine cancers. The primary treatment is surgery, and the prognosis is mostly well. In spite of many methods for the early diagnosis, the simpler and noninvasive methods are being sought. The aim of this study is to find out whether the value of thyroglobulin (Tg) is related with PTC.

Prospectively; we measured the preoperative Tg value of 203 (159 females and 44 males) patients who underwent a total thyroidectomy with various indications in General Surgery Department of Gaziantep University. Tg values of 61 patients with benign lesions and 142 patients with PTC were compared.

In the patients with PTC, the mean preoperative Tg value was 105.05 ng/ml and 76.80 ng/ml in the benign patients. According to receiver operating characteristic analysis, the cutoff point was determined 102 ng/ml. There was a statistically significant difference in preoperative Tg values between benign group and PTC (P < 0.05).

Patients with a preoperative Tg values above 102 ng/mL may more likely to have PTC. It is thought that Tg levels may be accepted as a criterion for distinguish malignant/benign situations that should be supported with new studies.