Clinicopathologic Characteristics of the 66 DTC Patients with Distant Metastasis
| TERT | |||
| Characteristic | Mutation | Wild-type | P |
| Number of patients | 15 | 51 | |
| Mean age ± SD (y) | 58.27 ± 10.51 | 36.86 ± 13.98 | <0.001 |
| Sex | |||
| Female | 11 | 27 | 0.160 |
| Male | 4 | 24 | |
| Mean tumor diameter ± SD (cm) | 4.12 ± 2.38 | 2.35 ± 1.06 | 0.013 |
| Histologic diagnosis | |||
| Classic PTC | 6 | 18 | |
| Follicular-variant PTC | 4 | 24 | |
| Sclerosing diffuse PTC | 3 | 6 | |
| Tall cell–variant PTC | 1 | 1 | |
| Hobnail-variant PTC | 0 | 1 | |
| Follicular thyroid cancer | 1 | 1 | |
| Aggressive histologic subtypes | 5 | 9 | 0.344 |
| Less aggressive histologic subtypes* | 10 | 42 | |
| Multifocality | |||
| One lesion | 3 | 15 | 0.697 |
| More than one lesion | 12 | 36 | |
| Extrathyroidal invasion | |||
| Yes | 13 | 39 | 0.624 |
| No | 2 | 12 | |
| Lymph node metastasis | |||
| N0 | 0 | 2 | |
| N1a | 0 | 0 | |
| N1b | 12 | 44 | |
| No cervical node dissection | 3 | 5 | |
| Site of distant metastases | |||
| Lung | 12 | 47 | 0.386 |
| Lung + other organs | 3 | 4 | |
| BRAF mutation | |||
| Yes | 10 | 19 | 0.044 |
| No | 5 | 32 | |
| Refractory to radioiodine | |||
| Yes | 15 | 18 | <0.001 |
| No | 0 | 33 | |
↵* Classic PTC and follicular-variant PTC.