Table 1.

Clinical characteristics of patients with thyroid tumor before and after PSM

Characteristics	All	Before PSM			After PSM
		Malignant group	Benign group	p value	Malignant group	Benign group	p value
n	1478	747	731	–	315	315	–
Gender				0.941			0.550
Male	290 (19.6%)	146 (19.5%)	144 (19.7%)		66 (21.0%)	60 (19.0%)
Female	1188 (80.4%)	601 (80.5%)	587 (80.3%)		249 (79.0%)	255 (81.0%)
Age (years)				0.000			0.362
Median	50 (40 ~ 57)	47 (36 ~ 53)	53 (44 ~ 60)		50 (38 ~ 58)	49 (39 ~ 57)
< 45	513 (34.7%)	330 (44.2%)	183 (25.0%)		109 (34.6%)	119 (37.8%)
45–55	513 (34.7%)	266 (35.6%)	247 (33.8%)		108 (34.3%)	105 (33.3%)
> 55	452 (30.6%)	151 (20.2%)	301 (41.2%)		98 (31.1%)	91 (28.9%)
Tumor size (mm)				0.000			0.426
Median	18.0 (9.0 ~ 35.0)	10.0 (7.0 ~ 17.0)	32.0 (21.0 ~ 42.0)		17.0 (9.1 ~ 28.0)	18.0 (10.0 ~ 30.0)
≤ 10	470 (31.8%)	390 (52.2%)	80 (10.9%)		87 (27.6%)	80 (25.4%)
11–30	531 (35.9%)	285 (38.2%)	246 (33.7%)		155 (49.2%)	161 (51.1%)
31–50	372 (25.2%)	56 (7.5%)	316 (43.2%)		56 (17.8%)	58 (18.4%)
> 50	105 (7.1%)	16 (2.1%)	89 (12.2%)		17 (5.4%)	16 (5.1%)
No. of CTCs (FU/3 mL)	9.5 (6.6 ~ 11.3)	9.7 (7.1 ~ 11.5)	8.0 (6.2 ~ 11.2)	0.001	9.5 (6.8 ~ 11.2)	7.8 (6.1 ~ 11.0)	0.124
TgAb (IU/mL)	1.885 (1.053 ~ 11.863)	2.525 (1.120 ~ 25.623)	1.640 (1.030 ~ 5.670)	0.000	1.890 (1.110 ~ 16.010)	1.645 (1.030 ~ 7.073)	0.049
TPOAb (IU/mL)	1.445 (0.570 ~ 8.593)	1.515 (0.560 ~ 19.045)	1.425 (0.580 ~ 6.243)	0.463	1.520 (0.515 ~ 12.185)	1.490 (0.565 ~ 7.058)	0.818
Pathology				–			–
PTC	–	721 (96.5%)	–		296 (94.0%)	–
Others	–	26 (3.5%)	–		19 (6.0%)	–
BRAF V600E mutation*				–
mutant	–	184 (73.0%)	–		79 (66.9%)
wild	–	68 (27.0%)	–		39 (33.1%)

PSM propensity score matching, CTC circulating tumor cell, TgAb thyroglobulin antibody, TPOAb Thyroid peroxidase antibody, PTC papillary thyroid carcinoma

^*Before PSM, 252 cases detected. After PSM, 118 cases detected