Pediatric thyroid carcinoma in the military population

A 30-year review of the Armed Forces Tumor Registry revealed that of 3,126 thyroid cancers on file, 82 were in the pediatric population. All of these cases were reviewed, and the mean age was found to be 13.8 years. There as a male-to-female ratio of 1:2.3. At the time of diagnosis, 33% had regional nodes and 6% had distant metastasis. The malignancies were 60% papillary, 13% follicular, 10% papillary-follicular variant, and 6% medullary. Treatment included 41% lobectomies with or without isthmectomy, 27% total thyroidectomies with or without node sampling, 20% total thyroidectomies with neck dissections, and 12% surgical treatment not otherwise specified. Of the surgical patients, 30% received postoperative 131I ablation. An average patient follow-up of 8.6 years showed that 65 remained disease-free, 5 had disease, 1 was dead of disease, and 10 were unknown. The results of our pediatric thyroid carcinoma review are compared with previously published figures.