Association between different variants of papillary thyroid carcinoma and risk-group according to AMES (age, metastasis, extent and size) classification system.

OBJECTIVE: To study the association between cell variants of papillary carcinoma and AMES (Age, Metastasis, Extent and Size) risk classification. MATERIAL AND METHOD: One hundred and twenty-one cases of papillary thyroid carcinomas were subclassified for cell type and risk-groups according to AMES classification system. Correlations between both variables are evaluated RESULTS: Among different cell variants of papillary carcinoma, solid cell pattern has the highest proportion of high-risk tumor classified by the AMES criteria, comprising 75% followed by tall cell subtype with 33.3% of high risk patients. Conventional papillary carcinoma has only 8.3% of high-risk group. Follicular and encapsulated variants as well as microcarcinoma (< 1 cm) are all categorized as low-risk neoplasms. CONCLUSION: The present study indicates that there is association between cell variants and AMES prognostic index. The authors, therefore, emphasize the importance of cell variants in predicting the prognosis of papillary carcinoma.