Management of Very Elderly Patients With Papillary Thyroid Cancer: Analysis of Outcomes for Surgery Versus Nonsurgery.

Abstract Background The prognosis of patients with papillary thyroid cancer (PTC) who have undergone surgery is usually good. But surgery is risky for elderly patients. The outcomes of surgery or nonsurgery for the very elderly PTC patients have not been reported. Here, we investigated the effect of surgery or not on prognosis in very elderly PTC patients (aged ≥85 y). Methods A retrospective study was performed based on data from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results program. The outcomes of surgery and nonsurgery in very elderly PTC patients were compared using different statistical methods, including propensity score matching. Results A total of 1196 very elderly patients with PTC were enrolled in the study. Patients who underwent surgery (n = 871) had a much better prognosis than those who did not (n = 325) in both overall survival and cancer-specific survival (P  Conclusions Surgery is positively associated with an improved prognosis of PTC patients aged ≥85 y and is still suggested for these patients after appropriate risk assessment.