A meta-analysis of Hashimoto’s thyroiditis and papillary thyroid carcinoma risk

// Xingjian Lai 1 , Yu Xia 1 , Bo Zhang 1 , Jianchu Li 1 and Yuxin Jiang 1 1 Department of Ultrasound, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences & Peking Union Medical College Hospital, Beijing, China Correspondence to: Yu Xia, email: xiayupumch@163.com Yuxin Jiang, email: jiangyxpumch@163.com Keywords: Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, chronic lymphocytic thyroiditis, papillary thyroid carcinoma, thyroid cancer, meta-analysis Received: February 04, 2017 Accepted: May 29, 2017 Published: June 27, 2017 ABSTRACT Objective: It remains inconclusive whether Hashimoto’s thyroiditis (HT) predisposes patients to the development of papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC). We conducted a meta-analysis of the available data to address this question. Results: Twenty-seven eligible studies were selected, including 18 archival thyroidectomy studies, 6 fine-needle aspiration (FNA) studies, and 3 selective FNA or thyroidectomy studies. A total of 76,281 patients, including 12,476 cases of thyroid cancer, were included in these studies. The mean rate of PTC among patients with HT ranged from 1.12% (selective FNA or thyroidectomy studies) to 40.11% (thyroidectomy studies). All three types of studies supported the correlation between HT and PTC. The overall pooled odds ratio (OR) of the PTC risk for HT (HT versus non-HT) was 2.12 (95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.78-2.52). Methods: We searched all relevant published studies using the citation databases PubMed and Embase. The ORs and corresponding 95% CIs were calculated by the random-effects model for the association between HT and PTC. Conclusions: Our meta-analysis confirmed that HT predisposed patients to the development of PTC.