Kitagawa Wataru, Shimizu Kazuo, Akasu Haruki, Tanaka Shigeo
Department of Surgery II, Nippon Medical School, Tokyo, Japan.
J Nippon Med Sch. 2003 Feb;70(1):57-61. doi: 10.1272/jnms.70.57.
Thyroid disease is comparatively prevalent, and it is important to perform careful palpation of the anterior neck when patients are first examined. In this paper, the latest data on and clinical characteristics of the epidemiology of thyroid carcinoma are described. According to Japanese cancer statistics, in 1996, the number of cases of thyroid carcinoma was 1,390 men and 5,437 women. The female to male ratio was 3.91: 1. The crude rate of thyroid carcinoma per 100,000 population was 2.3 men and 8.5 women. The age-adjusted incidence rate showed a gradual increase with age, and the peak of the age-adjusted incidence rate was over 80 years old among men, and from 70 to 80 years old among women. According to the Japanese Thyroid Cancer Registration Committee, from 1977 to 1999, papillary thyroid carcinoma accounted for more than 85% (30,256) of thyroid carcinomas among 35,312 patients. Medullary thyroid carcinoma (1.4%) and anaplastic thyroid carcinoma (1.6%) were rare. The female to male ratio of thyroid carcinoma was 6.1: 1. Registration was made in accordance with the general rules issued by the Japanese Society of Thyroid Surgery. According to the vital statistics, mortality related to thyroid carcinoma among all cancer-related deaths was 0.23% among men (411) and 0.76% among women (887) in 2000. The female to male ratio of mortality was 2.16: 1. The peak of mortality was from 70 to 80 years old among men, and from 80 to 90 years old among women. Most patients with differentiated thyroid carcinoma had a low mortality rate, but anaplastic carcinoma had a poor prognosis. Lung and bone were the main distant metastatic sites, and respiratory insufficiency was the most common specific fatal condition.
