The association of the hepatitis B virus infection with thyroid carcinoma: a large sample clinical study in China

Abstract

Objective: To explore whether thyroid carcinoma is associated with the infection of hepatitis B virus.

Results: Although there were no differences on the positive rates of Hepatitis B surface antigen and hepatitis B surface antibody in the thyroid carcinomas group (8.67% & 59.24%) and control group (8.86% & 58.21%, p > 0.05), the positive rate of hepatitis B core antibody in thyroid carcinomas group (55.71%) was significantly lower than that in the control group (63.28%, p = 0.0004). Through the logistic regression analysis, compared to the control group, the rate of hepatitis B core antibody seropositivity was lower in thyroid carcinomas group in whole cases (Adjusted OR = 0.82, 95% CI 0.69–0.98, p = 0.0337). In addition, compared to the control group, a more interesting result was found that the adjusted OR value of hepatitis B core antibody seropositivity of male is lower than female in statistics (Adjusted OR = 0.62, 95% CI 0.41–0.94, p = 0.0237; Adjusted OR = 0.89, 95% CI 0.72–1.08, p > 0.05, respectively).

Conclusions: The rate of hepatitis B core antibody seropositivity in thyroid carcinoma patients is lower than that in controls and the past hepatitis B virus infection may be a weak protective factor for the development of thyroid carcinoma.

Methods: In this study, the clinical data of 2134 patients with initially diagnosis of thyroid nodules while receiving surgery, with the reports of hepatitis B virus serological markers in single center from June 2010 to September 2015, were collected for comparative analysis. Of all there were 1050 (49.20%) cases of thyroid carcinomas group and 1084 (50.80%) noncancerous thyroid nodules group.