Recurrence of thyroid nodules after surgical removal in patients irradiated in childhood for benign conditions.

To determine the incidence of benign thyroid nodules and the risk factors for their recurrence after surgical removal, we followed 511 patients for 1 to 40.6 years (median, 11.2) after surgery for benign thyroid nodules arising after local irradiation for unrelated benign diseases in childhood. Recurrent thyroid nodules developed in 100 patients (19.5 percent). The risk of recurrence correlated inversely with the amount of thyroid tissue removed. Women had a higher recurrence rate than men (28.4 percent vs. 10.3 percent; P less than 0.05). Among the 299 patients who had been treated with thyroid hormone at the discretion of their physicians to suppress thyroid-stimulating hormone, 25 had recurrences (8.4 percent), as compared with 72 of 201 patients who did not receive thyroid hormone (35.8 percent) (hazard ratio taking into account the extent of surgery and the patient's sex, 2.5; 95 percent confidence interval, 1.5 to 4.1). Histologic analysis of the 73 tissue samples from patients with recurrences showed that 14 samples (19.2 percent) were malignant. Thyroid hormone treatment had no effect on the rate of thyroid cancer. We conclude that radiation-associated benign thyroid nodules have a high recurrence rate, similar to that reported among nonirradiated patients with benign thyroid nodules. We also conclude that treatment with thyroid hormone decreases the risk of benign recurrences, particularly in women, but not the risk of cancer.