Background for organ-preserving operations in cases of papillary thyroid carcinoma in patients, who were children and adolescents at the time of the Chernobyl accident

Abstract

In this article the objective and subjective reasons of the organ-preserving operations in children and adolescents at the time of the Chernobyl accident were analyzed.  It was proved that almost 40% of patients with papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC) operated in the clinic of the IEM during 1996-2012 years, there were persons from this age cohort. However, in 15.8% of such cases took place organ-preserving surgery. Distribution of these cases by years demonstrated  significant increasing linear trend. The great majority (94.6%) of insufficiently radical remouved PTC were the carcinomas with low potential of malignancy – micro- PTCs and fully encapsulated PTCs. The main reason for the organ-preserving operations – the impossibility to identify the presence of carcinoma at the preoperative  (TAB) or intraoperative stages of diagnostic. Despite the fact that PTC in the study group were potentially radioinduced, only 33.5% of patients agreed to final  thyroidectomy, and a determining factor in this was the size of the tumor.