The value of 18F-FDG PET/CT and 18F-DOPA PET/CT in determining the initial surgical strategy of patients with medullary thyroid cancer

Table 1 Patient and treatment characteristics

	All patients n=175 N (%) or median (IQR)
Academic hospital
UMCG	101 (58)
UMCU	74 (42)
Age in years (median)	52 (38 – 62)
Sex
Male	84 (48)
Female	91 (52)
Type of MTC
Sporadic	118 (67)
Familial	57 (33)
T-stage
TX	9 (5)
T1-2	122 (70)
T3-4	44 (25)
N-stage
N0	76 (43)
N1a	33 (19)
N1b	66 (38)
M-stage
MX/M0	152 (87)
M1	23 (13)
TNM category
I - II	76 (43)
III – IV	99 (57)
Calcitonin^a
<500	44 (32)
≥500	95 (68)
Thyroid surgery	159 (91)
Total thyroidectomy	155 (89)
Hemithyroidectomy	4 (2)
Lymph node dissection	144 (82)
Central neck dissection	140 (80)
Lateral neck dissection	59 (33)
Bilateral tumors^b	46/155 (30)
Lymph node metastases
Central neck (level VI)	71/140 (51)
Lateral neck (level II-V)	53/59 (90)
Follow-up time (months)	65 (29 – 125)
Locoregional recurrence	21 (12)
Time to locoregional recurrence (months)	29 (17 – 51)
Biochemical cure 1-year after diagnosis^c	86 (49)
Disease-specific survival	153 (87)
Overall survival	139 (79)

Abbreviations: MTC Medullary thyroid cancer
^aAvailable in 139/175 patients
^bBilateral tumors in patients undergoing total thyroidectomy (9/46 sporadic and 37/46 hereditary cases, p<0.001). In 4/155 patients, the laterality of the tumor could not be determined and in 1/155 patients, only extrathyroidal MTC localizations were identified
^cUnknown for 14 patients, percentages and significance of total excluding unknown variables are given. The majority of the hereditary MTCs and TNM stage I-II patients were biochemically cured after 1 year (41/54 hereditary MTC patients p<0.001; 69/72 TNM stage I-II patients, p<0.001)

ISSN: 1470-7330