Thyroid cancer incidence in the United Arab Emirates: a retrospective study on association with age and gender

Abstract

Background: Thyroid cancer is the ninth most common malignancy worldwide, but the third most common malignancy in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). To our knowledge, this is the first UAE nationwide study aimed at presenting incidence rates of thyroid cancer at the national level of UAE based upon data from the national cancer registry and GLOBOCAN. Methods: Between 2011 and 2017, a total of 2036 thyroid cancer cases from UAE patients were registered, of which 75.3% were female and 24.7% male patients. Results: The results showed 6.6% increase in thyroid cancer cases in the UAE from 2011 to 2017 (p < 0.001) with a rise of approximately 400 cases per year from 2011 to 2040. Age standardized rate calculations showed increase in prevalence from 1.18 in 2011 to 4.32 in 2017 but decreases in incidence from 1.05 in 2011 to 0.15 in 2017. This trend is confirmed by the predictive model showing increase in incidence from 0.15 in 2017 to 0.64 by 2040. Gender was shown to be significantly associated with thyroid cancer. The female to male ratio was significantly higher in Emirati patients (4.86:1) (p < 0.001) than expat patients (2.47:1) (p < 0.01). Interestingly, expat patients contributed to the majority of thyroid cancer cases despite having lower female to male ratio. The age at diagnosis was significantly associated with thyroid cancer (p = 0.03) with the highest frequency diagnosed at 35-39 years of age. Globally, data from the predictive model showed that Asia had the highest rate of increase per year and UAE the lowest. Conclusions: The slight increase in thyroid cancer prevalence and incidence, together with the different female to male ratio and diagnosis at younger age warrants further investigation at the molecular level from UAE thyroid cancer patients to elucidate the molecular basis of thyroid cancer.