ESPE Abstracts

There are inherent challenges in developing guidelines that incorporate practice variations reflecting geographic differences in the incidence of pediatric thyroid cancer, variable access to health care, differing cultural norms, and disparate local and regional resources across the breadth of our global pediatric thyroid community. Over the last decade, multiple pediatric guidelines on the evaluation and management of thyroid nodules and differentiated thyroid cancer have been published all with the same intent, to promote multidisciplinary centers of excellence focused on maintaining low disease-specific mortality and reducing therapeutic complications. My lecture will review criteria to establish, validate, and track outcomes of a center of excellence and obstacles that need to be overcome to achieve this goal. I will also propose clinical paradigms that could be tested through national and international multicenter prospective studies to improve stratification of care for pediatric patients with thyroid nodules and differentiated thyroid cancer.