An Ultrasound-based Prediction Model for Occult Contralateral Papillary Thyroid Carcinoma in Adolescents and Young Adults

Abstract

Rationale and objectives: To investigate the occult contralateral papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC)-associated ultrasound (US) and clinical characteristics and establish a US-based model for the prediction of occult contralateral carcinoma in adolescents and young adults (AYAs) who were diagnosed with unilateral thyroid carcinoma preoperatively.

Materials and methods: From January 2015 to December 2020, patients who were diagnosed with unilateral thyroid carcinoma by preoperative US examination and underwent total thyroidectomy or thyroid lobectomy with more than 60 months of US follow-up at our hospital were retrospectively collected. Univariate and multivariate analyses were applied to identify the independent risk factors associated with occult contralateral PTC in AYAs, on which a prediction model was developed. The performance of the model was evaluated with accuracy, sensitivity, specificity, and the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve.

Results: Occult contralateral PTC was found in 91 of 365 (24.9%) PTC patients with a median age at diagnosis of 26 years (interquartile range, 24-29 years). The multivariate analysis indicated that the presence of contralateral benign nodule, intra-tumoral calcification, and intraglandular dissemination were significantly associated with occult contralateral PTC in AYAs. The prediction model, which incorporated all independent predictors, yielded an area under the receiver operating characteristic curve of .661 (95% CI: .602-.719). The accuracy, sensitivity and specificity were 67.9%, 54.9%, and 72.3%, respectively.

Conclusion: The US-based prediction model proposed here exhibited a favorable performance for predicting occult contralateral PTC, which might be used to determine the appropriate extent of surgery for AYAs who had a preoperative diagnosis of unilateral thyroid carcinoma.

Keywords: adolescents and young adults; contralateral; occult; papillary thyroid carcinoma; ultrasound.