ABSTRACT
Thyroglobulin
antibody (TgAb) has been used as a surrogate tumor marker of differentiated
thyroid carcinoma (DTC) patients. Preoperative TgAb (PreopTgAb) is thought to
affect the prevalence, disease severity, and outcome of DTC. The objective of
the present study was to retrospectively analyze the prevalence of PreopTgAb in
patients diagnosed with DTC and its relation to thyroid cancer characteristics,
staging, and disease outcome. A retrospective analysis of 109 DTC patients with reports of PreopTgAb was
carried out. Clinicopathological parameters, including patient demographics
(age and gender), TNM staging, histopathologic characteristics (type of
pathology, vascular invasion, extrathyroid extension, carcinoma variant,
multifocality), treatment (surgery, radioactive iodine), and outcome were
recorded. The association of PreopTgAb was compared with the study variables and
outcome of the disease using the Chi-square test and Mann-Whitney tests. The prevalence of PreopTgAb
was 59.6%. Among the 54 PreopTgAb positive patients, 34 patients had an excellent response and 15
patients had an indeterminate response, while biochemically and structurally incomplete response was
observed in 3 and 2 patients, respectively. PreopTgAb was not significantly
associated with age (p = 0.919), sex (p = 0.650), pathology (p = 0.079), stage
at diagnosis (p = 0.513), vascular invasion (p = 0.211), extra thyroid
extension (p = 0.734), histologic variant (p = 0.877), multifocality (p = 0.361),
and outcome (p = 0.360). Although we did not find a significant association
between positive PreopTgAb and clinical characteristics and outcome of DTC, it can still be considered as a surrogate
marker of DTC during follow-up.