The Development of an Automatic Thyroid Cancer Staging, Prognosis Predicting and Follow-Up Strategy Suggesting Calculator with Concurrent Data Input Process / 대한이비인후과학회지

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: It takes considerable time and effort to make decisions about management and follow up for the thyroid cancer. Also there are risks of incorrectness or confusion on the part of thyroid specialists. We developed a thyroid cancer calculator that does automatic thyroid cancer staging, prognosis predicting and suggesting follow-up strategies in order to reduce the burden of thyroid specialists who have to memorize a lot of guidelines and statistics, and to give consistency to the treatment plan. MATERIALS AND METHOD: An automatic thyroid cancer calculator was developed by using a computer program called 'Qt 5.2 version', based on patient demographics, diagnosis, treatment, and follow-up status. This partly cited the history of prior thyroid cancer or other cancer registration, and focused on the specification of differentiated thyroid cancer. RESULTS: The program consisted of survival, recurrence and, dynamic re-stratification with follow-up. The patient registration form consisted of identification number, name and operation date, and patients needed to enter their thyroid cancer status, including clinical and pathologic information after registration. The entered information could be easily accessed in a few seconds. The program helped to update patient's current status, promptly collect data for clinical studies of thyroid cancers and provide better patient care. This program was simple, convenient and time-saving for users as it specifically contained important thyroid cancer items. CONCLUSION: Although this program is still in its primitive stage, the Kosin thyroid calculator reduces the workload of thyroid specialists and prevents the loss of clinical data. Furthermore, it could be a useful tool for the management and research of thyroid cancer.