Background: The metastases, age at diagnosis, completeness of resection, invasion, size of the tumor (MACIS) scoring system was developed to predict disease-specific survival in patients with differentiated thyroid carcinoma (DTC), mainly for adults, with a cut-off score of 6. The purpose of this study was to evaluate its ability to predict prognosis of DTC in children and young adults.
Methods: The medical records of 66 children and young adult (<21 years old) patients with DTC were reviewed retrospectively. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis was performed to determine the cut-off for predicting poor prognosis.
Results: Extrathyroidal invasion and regional lymph node metastasis were noted in 64% each, and distant metastases were found in 8%. The optimal cut-off for the MACIS score for poor prognosis was 4 (93% sensitivity, 67% specificity). The overall 10-year recurrence-free survival was better in patients with MACIS score <4 than score ≥4 (p < .05).
Conclusion: A MACIS score of more than 4 was associated with a poor prognosis in children and young adult patients with DTC.
Copyright © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.