BOSTON – Extensive surgery beyond lobectomy offers no survival advantage for small papillary thyroid cancers, according to a large database analysis.

Total thyroidectomy was not associated with an overall survival benefit over lobectomy for papillary thyroid cancers sized 1-2 cm (hazard ratio, 1.05; P = .61) or 2.1-4.0 cm (HR, 0.89; P = .21), even after adjusting for multiple patient and pathologic factors.

"Despite guidelines, our results call into question whether tumor size 1-4 cm should be an absolute determinant for extent of surgery," Dr. Mohamed Abdelgadir Adam said at the annual meeting of the American Surgical Association.

Current American Thyroid Association guidelines recommend lobectomy for tumors less than 1 cm in size and total thyroidectomy for those exceeding 1 cm.

Dr. Julie Ann Sosa (L) and Dr. Mohamed Abdelgadir Adam

"Using total thyroidectomy based on tumor size alone may unnecessarily subject patients to increased risks of complications without a survival benefit," he said. "In addition to tumor size up to 4 cm, other factors are important for determining extent of surgery such as nodal and distant metastases and patient preference."

The extent of surgery for papillary thyroid cancer, however, remains controversial. Recent analyses (Arch. Otolaryngol. Head Neck Surg. 2010;136:1055-61) have shown no survival difference between lobectomy and total thyroidectomy, while an earlier landmark study found improved overall survival with total thyroidectomy for tumors 1 cm or more (Ann. Surg. 2007;246;375-81). The latter study, however, has been criticized because it did not take into account patient comorbidities, multifocality, extrathyroidal extension, or completeness of resection, said Dr. Adam of Duke University School of Medicine, Durham, N.C.

The current analysis adjusted for age, gender, race, annual income, insurance status, hospital volume, patient comorbidities, tumor multifocality, extrathyroidal extension, lymph node involvement, metastases, surgical margins, and radioactive iodine ablation.

Discussant Dr. Blake Cady, professor emeritus of surgery at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, said the current report is an important contribution to the controversy. It also supports his own bias against overtreatment of these mostly young patients with total thyroidectomy, which necessitates long-term medication and is accompanied by almost routine use of radioactive iodine, despite no evidence it improves outcomes in low-risk patients.

"In no other human cancer with a 99% 20-year survival is a policy of routine total primary organ removal practiced and routine systemic therapy used," he said. "Therefore, this report may help to scale back toward a more measured balance between treatment and morbidity."

Study coauthor Dr. Julie Ann Sosa, chief of endocrine surgery at Duke, challenged the audience to promote the growing body of evidence supporting equivalence in overall survival, such as a recent study described as coming the closest to a head-to-head comparison and having the longest follow-up at 18 years. It showed equivalence between lobectomy, without radioactive iodine, and total thyroidectomy for overall, progression-free, and disease-specific survival and risk of recurrence in tumors 40 mm or less (World J. Surg. 2014;38:68-79.

"In light of these data, I think it is probably high time for guidelines to potentially reconsider this issue," she said, noting that the American Thyroid Association will issue new guidelines later this spring or summer.

Dr. Sosa also advocated for "a more sophisticated approach" to preoperative evaluation and risk stratification for papillary thyroid cancer that distinguishes between low-, medium-, and high-risk tumors. The Duke study did not exclude most high-risk tumors, but rather adjusted for high-risk characteristics such as extrathyroidal extension, lymph node involvement, and distant metastases.

"When you adjust for these high-risk characteristics, the afforded overall survival benefit disappears," she said. "So what I think we would argue is that there is equivalence in outcome for the majority of patients for low- and medium-risk tumors. But for those patients who have high-risk tumors, as defined by some of these high-risk characteristics, then I think all of us would agree that total thyroidectomy, with or without radioactive iodine, would be indicated."

The study involved 61,775 patients in the National Cancer Database who underwent total thyroidectomy (n = 54,926) or lobectomy with or without isthmusectomy (n = 6,849) for papillary thyroid cancer from 1998 to 2006. Compared with the lobectomy group, the thyroidectomy group had more tumor multifocality (44% vs. 29%), positive surgical margins (27% vs. 7%), distant metastases (1% vs. 0.4%), and radioactive iodine (65% vs. 33%; P value less than .01 for all).

In multivariable analysis, nodal and distant metastases were associated with compromised survival, Dr. Adam said.

The complete manuscript of this study and its presentation at the American Surgical Association’s 134^th Annual Meeting, April 2014 in Boston, is anticipated to be published in the Annals of Surgery, pending editorial review.

The authors reported no conflicting interests

pwendling@frontlinemedcom.com

Lobectomy suffices for surgery of small papillary thyroid cancers