Recent Trends in the Clinicopathological Features of Thyroid Nodules in Pediatric Patients: A Single Tertiary Center Experience over 25 Years

Table 3

Clinicopathological features of the pediatric patients with thyroid nodules according to sex.

	Females (n = 166)		Males (n = 49)		value
Age, years (mean, SD)	15	±2.748	13	±4.154	0.001
Age groups					0.002
0–10	12	7.2%	12	24.5%
11–15	61	36.7%	18	36.7%
16–18	93	56.0%	19	38.8%
Period of diagnosis					0.149
1990–1995	33	19.9%	9	18.4%
1996–2000	35	21.1%	15	30.6%
2001–2005	35	21.1%	5	10.2%
2006–2010	32	19.3%	6	12.2%
2011–2014	31	18.7%	14	28.6%
Chief complaint leading to hospital admission					0.037
Incidentaloma	13	7.8%	8	16.3%
Anterior neck palpable mass	129	77.7%	36	73.5%
Lateral neck palpable mass	3	1.8%	4	8.2%
Neck discomfort	2	1.2%	1	2.0%
Hoarseness	2	1.2%	0
Dyspnea	3	1.8%	0
Unknown	14	8.4%	0
Fine needle aspiration at admission					0.032
Yes	119	71.7%	42	85.7%
No	47	28.3%	7	14.3%
Initial cytology					0.061
Nondiagnostic or unsatisfactory	0		1	2.4%
Benign	15	12.6%	8	19.0%
Atypia of undetermined significance or follicular lesion of undetermined significance	12	10.1%	3	7.1%
Follicular neoplasm or suspicion of follicular neoplasm	11	9.2%	6	14.3%
Suspicion of malignancy	7	5.9%	4	9.5%
Malignant	73	61.3%	19	45.2%
Others (schwannoma and abscess)	1	0.8%	1	2.4%
Final pathology after thyroidectomy					0.410
Benign	66	39.8%	21	42.9%
Graves’ disease (diffuse hyperplasia)	34	51.5%	3	14.3%
Adenomatous goiter/nodular hyperplasia	18	27.3%	8	38.1%
Hashimoto thyroiditis	2	3.0%	0
Follicular adenoma	11	16.7%	7	33.3%
Hurthle cell adenoma	1	1.5%	1	4.8%
Others (schwannoma and abscess)	0		2	9.5%
Malignant	100	60.2%	28	57.1%
Papillary thyroid cancer	83	83.0%	23	82.1%
Follicular thyroid cancer	16	16.0%	5	17.9%
Papillary with follicular thyroid cancer	1	1.0%	0
Tumor size by pathology after thyroidectomy (cm)	2.5	(0.5–9.0)	2.6	(0.4–8.0)	0.353