Hemithyroidectomy: the preferred initial surgical approach for management of Hurthle cell neoplasm

Background The objective of this study was to evaluate the cancer risk of patient clinicopathologic characteristics to determine the optimal approach for the surgical management of individuals with Hurthle cell neoplasm (HN) diagnosed by cytology. Methods Patient clinicopathologic characteristics evaluated included age, sex, tumor size, and ipsilateral thyroid lobe nodularity. The association of these characteristics with a pathologic cancer diagnosis was evaluated using Fisher’s exact test and Student t test. Results Of the 422 patients undergoing thyroidectomy, 27 presented with a fine-needle aspiration biopsy diagnosis of HN, and by pathologic assessment 7 HN patients (25.9%) had a cancer diagnosis. Although none of the clinicopathologic characteristics evaluated were able to reliably differentiate benign from malignant tumors, large tumor size and male sex were significantly associated with a pathologic diagnosis of Hurthle cell carcinoma (P < .05). Conclusions Hemithyroidectomy represents the preferred initial surgical approach for the management of individuals presenting with nodular thyroid disease and a cytologic diagnosis of HN.