Risk Factors Associated with Benign and Malignant Thyroid Nodules in Autoimmune Thyroid Diseases

Table 4

Comparative analysis of thyroid nodules and thyroid carcinoma between patients with Graves’ disease and Hashimoto’s thyroiditis.

	Graves’ disease	Hashimoto's thyroiditis	𝑃
Nodules (𝑛 = 94)
Gender—male/female (%)	4/51 (4.26/54.26)	2/37 (2.13/39.36)	1
Age—yrs (range)	53 (27–84)	55 (15–84)	0.942
Age at diagnosis—yrs (range)	46 (17–81)	47 (5–70)	0.896
Disease duration—yrs (range)	6 (0.6–20)	7 (0.2–16)	0.911
Total thyroid volume—cc (range)	29.8 (4.1–242)	18.5 (1–111.9)	0.002
PTC (%)	9 (9.57)	6 (6.38)	0.898
US echogenicity—hyper/iso/hypo (%)	12/28/9 (13.95/32.56/10.47)	4/19/14 (4.65/22.09/16.28)	0.073
Time of followup—yrs (range)	6 (0.3–20)	7 (0.2–16)	0.661
Smoking (%)^a	18 (31.58)	9 (15.79)	0.439
Time of treatment—yrs (range)	4 (0.3–17)	6 (1–16)	0.001
Number of nodules (range)	2 (1–7)	2 (1–6)	0.861
Size of largest nodule on US—cm (range)	1.7 (0.5–6.8)	1.6 (0.5–4.6)	0.575
PTC (𝑛 = 16)
Gender—male/female (%)	1/9 (6.25/56.25)	0/6 (0/37.5)	0.95
Age—yrs (range)	39 (28–58)	55 (51–84)	0.019
Age at diagnosis—yrs (range)	30 (17–49)	49 (44–70)	0.004
Disease duration—yrs (range)	9 (3–18)	8.5 (2–14)	0.786
Total thyroid volume—cc (range)	55.1 (16.2–167.5)	26.7 (6.4–111.9)	0.357
PTC (%)	10 (62.5)	6 (37.5)	0.751
US echogenicity—hyper/iso/hypo (%)^b	3/5/0 (21.43/35.71/0)	0/2/4 (0/14.29/28.57)	0.019
Microcarcinoma (%)	3 (18.75)	1 (6.25)	1
Histopathological variant—classical/follicular (%)	4/6 (25/37.5)	4/2 (25/12.5)	0.608
Multifocal (%)	4 (25)	2 (12.5)	1
Time of followup—yrs (range)	9 (3–18)	8.5 (3–14)	0.785
Smoking (%)	4 (25)	1 (6.25)	0.588
Time of treatment—yrs (range)	3.5 (1–6)	7 (2–14)	0.062
Number of nodules (range)	1.5 (0–5)	3 (1–5)	0.148
Size of largest nodule on US—cm (range)	2.2 (0.5–6.8)	2.1 (1–4.3)	0.796

^a𝑛 = 57.
^b𝑛 = 14.