Results
We analyzed 363 patients aged ≤18 years (mean age 14.2 years) who underwent surgery due to thyroid carcinoma: 210 males (58%), females 153 (42%). We clustered patients into age groups: ≤ 15 years or > 15 years. In the first subgroup we included 207 cases (57%) while 156 (43%) were older. All the patients underwent a mean follow-up of 5.8 years (range 1-11 years). We grouped the patients according to the tumor size: in 210 (57%) cases the tumor was < 2 cm, while in 153 (42%) it was ≥ 2 cm. Three hundred twenty six patients (90%) underwent total thyroidectomy, 37 (10%) a hemithyroidectomy. Lymph node dissection was carried out in 175 (48%) patients. In 16 cases (4%), due to incidental parathyroidectomy, we performed an autotransplantation into the ipsilateral sternocleidomastoid muscle. At histological examination 310 (85%) were papillary carcinoma in the classical variant, 32 (9%) were follicular carcinoma, 6 (2%) presented diffuse sclerosing variant of papillary thyroid carcinoma whilst 15 (4%) had medullary carcinoma: 6 MEN 2A (2%), 4 MEN 2B (1%), 5 FMTC (1%). TtHP developed in 36 (10%), PtHP in 20 (6%) cases. No significant differences between TtHP and PtHP groups were reported with regard to gender (p=0.408 for TtHP and p=0.974 for PtHP) and parathyroid autotransplantation (p=0.437 for TtHP and p=0.673 for PtHP). TtHP was more frequent in subjects with age ≤15 years (p=0.009). Both PtHP and TtHP were increased in case of larger tumors (≥2 cm) (p=0.001). Concerning surgical approach, all the patients who presented TtHP and PtHP belonged to the TT group. PtHP rate was increased in patients who underwent lymph node dissection (p<0.001). No significant histologic differences for TtHP and PtHP were reported. Table 1 and 2 report the statistical analysis performed on all the parameters we investigated in our cohort of patients.