Association of Chronic Lymphocytic Thyroiditis with the Surgical Diseases of the Thyroid Gland

Abstract

Background: The incidence of chronic lymphocytic thyroiditis (CLT), the most common cause of hypothyroidism, has increased rapidly in the last three decades, and it is argued that these cases have a higher risk of being affected by malignant neoplasia. In this study, we aimed to investigate the relationship between CLT and papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC). Materials and Methods:The data sets created by retrospectively screening the data of 780 patients who underwent surgical treatment for thyroid gland diseases in our clinic between 2010 and 2020 were analyzed with the logistic regression analysis, chi-square test or Fisher’s Exact chi-square test using IBM SPSS Statistics 22. A p-value less than 0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results: The patients 75.9% of the cases were female and 24.1% were male and it was observed that the risk of CLT in female patients was 2.5 times higher than in male patients, and CLT positivity decreased as patient age increased. The malignant group has a higher rate CLT coexistence and greater thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH) values compared to the benign group (4.20±13.03 vs. 2.81±11.75). A lower cytological diagnosis success was observed in association with CLT (35.51% vs. 47.22%). Conclusion: It was observed that the association of CLT and PTC was higher in the presence of high TSH and autoantibodies in young women. The success of aspiration biopsies performed for diagnostic purposes was found to be lower. We consider that patients with CLT should be closely evaluated in terms of malignancy and especially the development of PTC due to the difficulties in the diagnosis and follow-up of these cases, and there is a need to develop new imaging and cytopathological diagnosis methods for these patients