The changing face of thyroid cancer in a population-based cohort, 2011-2015

Abstract

In North America, the incidence of thyroid cancer is increasing by over 6% every year. A population based cohort of 2306 consecutive thyroid cancers (170-2010) has already been established and followed in the province of Manitoba, Canada for a median period of 10.5 years. There has been a change in the treatment recommendations for thyroid cancer over the past 4 decades with more use of total thyroidectomy and radioactive iodine. The trends and factors influencing thyroid cancer incidence, its clinical presentation, and treatment outcome of 2306 patients seen during 1970-2010 will be compared with that of 575 patients from 2011-2015. The data from 2306 patients seen during 1970-2010 is already available and this seen during 2011-2015 project will involve review of electronic and paper charts of 575 patients. Age standardized incidence rate (ASIR) will be used to evaluate any change in the incidence of thyroid cancer. Disease specific survival and disease free survival will be estimated by the Kaplan-Meier method and intergroup comparisons will be made by log rank test. The independent influence of various prognostic factors will be evaluated by Cox Proportional Hazard models.