Association between metabolic syndrome and clinicopathological features of papillary thyroid cancer

Background: Metabolic syndrome (MetS) was a risk factor for papillary thyroid cancer (PTC). Whether MetS impacts the aggressiveness of PTC is still unclear. We carried out this study to clarify this issue.

Methods: We evaluated 745 consecutive PTC patients treated with surgery. Patients were divided into three groups based on their number of MetS components: patients without any MetS components, patients with 1-2 MetS components, and patients with 3-5 MetS components. The clinical features and histological aggressiveness of PTC at the time of diagnosis were evaluated.

Results: A total of 745 patients were included in this study. And, 145 patients had three or more metabolic components and were diagnosed as MetS. MetS was a risk factor for larger tumors (OR = 2.29, 95% CI: 1.31-4.03), more lymph node metastasis (OR = 1.97, 95% CI: 1.11-3.51), and later clinical stage (OR = 7.92, 95% CI: 1.59-39.34) after correction for age, sex, and thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH) level and body mass index (BMI).

Conclusion: In our hospital-based cohort study MetS was associated with the aggressiveness of PTC. This association was still significant after adjusting for age, sex, TSH, and BMI.