Histopathological Pattern of Thyroid Lesions in Western Region of Saudi Arabia

BACKGROUND: Partial or complete thyroidectomies are frequently encountered by the practicing pathologist and the possibility of neoplastic disease is of major concern in patients with thyroid nodules. Pathological evaluation of those specimens ranged from non-neoplastic lesion to highly aggressive malignancy. OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to document the frequency of different patterns of thyroid diseases as presented to pathology departments at King Abdul-Aziz University Hospital (KAUH) and King Faisal Specialty Hospital and Research centre (KFSHRC) within the last twelve years. MATERIAL AND METHOD: All specimens presented to pathology departments at KAUH (1997- 2008) and KFSHRC (2000-2008) as thyroidectomies (partial or complete) were retrospectively reviewed and categorized according to their histological appearance. RESULTS: The total number of the studied cases was 845 cases. The age of the patients ranged between 9 and 93 years. One hundred seventy eight were males and 667 were female (male to female ratio; 1:3.7). The reviewed cases were classically categorized into two main groups; Non- neoplastic (494; 58.5%) and Neoplastic (351; 41.5%). The non-neoplastic group includes: Multinodular Goiter (311 cases; 36.8 %), hashimoto/chronic lymphocytic thyroiditis (64 cases; 7.6 %), single hyperplastic nodule (51 cases; 6 %), Grave’s disease (8 cases; 0.9 %), miscellaneous (58 cases; 6.9%). The neoplastic group includes benign category represented by “Adenomas” and includes 94 cases (11% of all cases, and 26.8 % of neoplastic cases) and the malignant category includes 256 cases, representing 30.3 % of all studied cases and 73% of the neoplastic category. Two hundred and nine cases (81.6 % of malignant) were papillary carcinoma. CONCLUSION: Thyroid lesions are more common in Saudi female. The majority of the thyroid nodules in Saudi are non-neoplastic. Papillary carcinoma is the commonest type of thyroid cancer in Saudi society. Thyroid neoplasm is rare in Saudi children.