Objective: The purpose of this study was to determine whether familial non-medullary thyroid cancer (FNMTC) is more aggressive than sporadic thyroid cancer.
Subjects and methods: We compared the clinical behavior and outcome of 16 subjects with FNMTC from 7 unrelated kindred with those observed in 160 subjects with sporadic PTC (SPTC) from our database.
Results: The only different baseline characteristics observed between both groups were: bilateral malignancy, 38% vs. 24%, respectively (p = 0.03), and lymph node metastasis, 56.2% vs. 39%, respectively (p = 0.01). Considering the outcome, in the FNMTC, 9 (56.2%) patients were rendered free of disease, one patient died from thyroid cancer (6%), and 6/16 (37.5%) had persistent disease. In the SPTC Group, 87 (54%) patients were considered free of disease, 11 (7%) died due to PTC, and 62 (38%) had persistent disease (p = ns).
Conclusions: Despite the higher incidence of lymph node metastasis in FNMTC patients this situation seemed not to alter the compared outcome.