Thyroid cancer in children: Report of three cases and a review of the Japanese literature

We experienced three cases of thyroid cancer in children less than 15 years of age between 1982 and 1995. We herein present these three cases with a review of 141 reported cases of childhood thyroid cancer in Japan. Our patients were 6, 13, and 14 years old. The patients, all girls, were diagnosed as having thyroid cancer based on diagnostic imaging. One of them was also diagnosed by a fine-needle aspiration biopsy (FNAB). One of them underwent subtotal thyroidectomy, and the other two underwent lobectomy. Modified neck dissections were performed on all three. Pathologically, the tumors were all papillary carcinomas. Multiple lymph node metastases were present in all patients. However, the postoperative courses have been good, and there have been no signs of recurrence, 10, 8, and 2 years after their respective operations. In 144 reported cases of childhood thyroid cancer in Japan including ours, the youngest patient was a 2-year-old boy, and the female to male ratio was 2.1:1. FNAB was performed in 25 cases, and 23 (92%) of the tumors were diagnosed as malignant. Histologically, 76% were papillary carcinoma and 20% follicular carcinoma. At operation, lymph node metastases were found in 80% of the cases and lung metastases in 17%. For treatment, 88% of the patients received a more extensive operation than a lobectomy. Of the 144 patients, 8 died.