Published on Oct. 23, 2020

Thyroid cancer accounted for 1 out of every 20 female cancer diagnoses worldwide in 2018; the etiology of this disease is not well understood, and preventive programs are not established.  It is well known that thyroid cancer incidence has been increasing since the 1980s, largely attributed to the increase in diagnosis of papillary thyroid cancer and improvements in detection and diagnosis.  Currently, exposure to ionizing radiation is the only well-established risk factor for thyroid cancer.  

Literature published in the English language between 1946 and September 2020 was searched via MEDLINE. A building-block strategy was used to identify articles of interest: “thyroid neoplasms” OR “thyroid cancer, papillary” AND “risk factors” AND “humans” AND “adult.”  Original studies on risk factors for thyroid cancer in adult humans were selected for further review.  Studies were included if they reported a measure of association between thyroid cancer and the risk factor of interest and focused on the initial occurrence of thyroid cancer; excluding those cases that focus on predicting metastasis or thyroid cancer recurrence.

This presentation will highlight the background, methods, and preliminary results of this systematic literature review; highlighting the risk factors across five different categories: behavioral, physiological, demographic, environmental, genetic, and social.  

Please contact Robert Sanders (sandersrl@missouri.edu) for Zoom information.