Table 1.

Patient demographic, clinical and pathologic characteristics by extent of surgery (1998–2006)

	Lobectomy (N=6849)	Total Thyroidectomy (N=54926)	P-value
Female	5556 (81.1%)	43242 (78.7%)	<0.01
Age (yrs)			<0.01
<45	3498 (51.1%)	29044 (52.9%)
45–64	2500 (36.5%)	20183 (36.7%)
≥65	851 (12.4%)	5699 (10.4%)
Race			<0.01
White	5886 (87.6%)	47471 (88.2%)
Black	463 (6.9%)	2972 (5.5%)
Asian	270 (4.0%)	2599 (4.8%)
Other	97 (1.4%)	786 (1.5%)
Annual income			<0.01
<$35,000	1880 (29.1%)	12594 (24.4%)
≥$35,000	4572 (70.9%)	38992 (75.6%)
Insurance status			NS
Not insured	196 (2.9%)	1384 (2.6%)
Insured	6450 (97.1%)	51926 (97.4%)
Comorbidity*			NS
0	2796 (88.4%)	26476 (89.3%)
1	311 (9.8%)	2764 (9.3%)
≥2	56 (1.8%)	408 (1.4%)
Tumor size			NS
1.0–2.0 cm	4092 (59.7%)	32541 (59.2%)
2.1–4.0 cm	2757 (40.3%)	22385 (40.8%)
Multifocality**			<0.01
No	1609 (71.5%)	12664 (56.2%)
Yes	642 (28.5%)	9879 (43.8%)
Extrathyroidal extension**			<0.01
No	3167 (94.7%)	24759 (84.5%)
Yes	177 (5.3%)	4545 (15.5%)
Nodal metastasis			<0.01
Absent***	6189 (90.4%)	39468 (71.9%)
Present	479 (7.2%)	14655 (27.1%)
Distant metastasis			<0.01
Absent	6823 (99.6%)	54368 (99.0%)
Present	26 (0.4%)	558 (1.0%)
Margin status			<0.01
Negative	1413 (21.2%)	14191 (26.2%)
Positive	479 (7.2%)	14655 (27.1%)
RAI administered	2165 (33.2%)	33756 (65.3%)	<0.01
Annual hospital case volume (median)	8 (IQR 4–16)	12 (IQR 6–22)	<0.01

IQRs: interquartile range.

Values are presented as percentages of given sample size. Percentages were rounded and may not add to 100 due to missing values.

^*Variable not collected by the NCDB before 2003; values are presented as percentages of the known (after 2003).

^**Variable not collected by the NCDB before 2004; values are presented as percentages of the known (after 2004).

^***Absent nodal disease, included those with no proven lymph node disease: either lymph nodes were not examined or negative when examined.