The authors reviewed 126 patients with high-risk papillary thyroid cancer treated at the Hospital do Câncer (Rio de Janeiro) between 1986 and 1994. Hospital do Câncer (Rio de Janeiro - Brazil) is the end point of many patients treated initially elsewhere in the country justifying why patients included in this study were not seen at a first basis. We address the question regarding if prognostic factors of papillary thyroid carcinoma maintain their importance in high stages or recurrent diseases. Patient's age over 45 years, showed an important role on adverse disease evolution (p = 0,01), even greater than distant metastasis (p = 0,03), cervical metastasis (p = 0,03), patient's sex, or glandular capsular invasion. The importance of the patient's age even in a high-risk patients group, reinforces the therapeutic approach of papillary thyroid cancer based on prognostic factors and risk groups.
Papillary thyroid cancer; Prognostic factors; Risk factors
