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Background: Papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC) is the most common endocrine malignancy. Despite its low mortality rate, the disease has a recurrence rate of up to 30%. The mainstay of treatment for PTC is surgery, followed by radioiodine ablation and thyroxine therapy in appropriately selected patients. PTC can appear as a unifocal solitary tumor, but also as two or more anatomically separate foci. A great deal of controversy surrounds the significance of multifocality as a prognostic factor, and it is considered a poor prognostic factor that prompts more aggressive treatment. The aim of this study was to investigate the prognostic value of tumor multifocality on disease recurrence and mortality in PTC patients., Methods: Data of 1039 consecutive PTC patients from two tertiary medical centers were reviewed. The baseline characteristics and short- and long-term outcome were analyzed to evaluate the prognostic significance of multifocal disease. The application of two different propensity score models followed multivariate analysis., Results: The median follow-up was 10.1 years, and 534 (51.4%) patients had multifocal disease and 505 (48.6%) unifocal disease. Patients with the multifocal disease were significantly older, were more frequently male, had more extrathyroidal extension, more lymph node metastases, more advanced disease (stage III/IV), and a higher American Thyroid Association recurrence risk. Multifocal PTC patients had more persistence at one year (26.6% vs. 16.4%; p < 0.001), more recurrence during follow-up (12.7% vs. 6.6%; p = 0.002), and a higher overall mortality rate (15.5% vs. 9.7%; p = 0.002). However, there were no significant differences in recurrence, last-visit persistency, and mortality rates when adjusting for confounding variables by using propensity score matching., Conclusion: This propensity score-matching study provides the best available data to support the assertion that multifocality in PTC patients is a marker of more extensive disease at presentation, but not an independent prognostic factor for long-term outcomes.

Background: The number of patients undergoing shoulder arthroplasty is increasing yearly., Objectives: To evaluate the results of a consecutive series of patients who underwent shoulder replacement for a variety of indications in a single medical center in Israel., Methods: All shoulder arthroplasties performed in our institution between 2006 and 2015 were retrospectively reviewed. The functional outcomes and satisfaction of 180 shoulder arthroplasties were evaluated for objective and subjective parameters using the American Shoulder and Elbow Surgeons Shoulder Score (ASES), the Disabilities of the Arm, Shoulder and Hand (DASH) outcome measure, and the Short Form Health Survey (SF-12)., Results: The indications for surgery were osteoarthritis (n=35), rotator cuff arthropathy (n=32), fractures (n=99), and other reasons (n=14). The mean follow-up was 52 months. The scores improved markedly among the patients who underwent surgery later in the study period. The mean DASH score before 2012 was 48.8 and improved to 37.2 after 2013. The respective ASES also improved from 54.2 to 68.6. The use of hemiarthroplasty decreased from 85% to 33% as of 2013, while the use of total shoulder arthroplasty increased., Conclusions: Shoulder arthroplasty represents an effective treatment modality with satisfactory functional outcomes. Our current study demonstrates a shift from hemiarthroplasty to total shoulder arthroplasty, with the number of procedures increasing yearly. Surgeon experience and the expanding volume of operations had a direct positive effect on the functional outcomes of shoulder arthroplasties.