Patients After Thyroid Surgery
Conditions
Keywords
Post-thyroidectomy, Postoperative Management, Structured Active Follow-up
Brief summary
Patients after thyroid cancer surgery face multiple challenges, including recurrence monitoring, medication adjustment, complication management (e.g., hypoparathyroidism, vocal cord dysfunction), and long-term psychosocial adaptation. Studies confirm that standardized long-term follow-up can raise 5-year survival rates to over 90% and significantly reduce disability and mortality in patients with thyroid dysfunction. Despite the recognized importance of follow-up, conventional practice has major limitations. The traditional model relies on passive patient return visits, either when symptoms appear or at fixed intervals. Adherence is influenced by patients' health awareness, education, geographic distance, finances, and work obligations. Consequently, loss to follow-up and delayed follow-up are common. Clinical data from China show that follow-up adherence drops from less than 60% at one year post-surgery to below 40% at three years. Many patients experience disease progression or treatment delays, increasing their physical and psychological burden, as well as healthcare costs. Physicians face high clinic workloads, fragmented patient information, and difficulty tracking long-term outcomes. Furthermore, conventional follow-up lacks personalized plans-timing, content, and methods are uniform, making it difficult to meet diverse patient needs. Poor communication and delayed information transfer further undermine follow-up quality. In response, a patient-centered, proactive, structured, and full-cycle health management approach has become a new direction for chronic cancer care. Our hospital has introduced the "Follow-up Package (Proactive Postoperative Follow-up Program)," an innovative model that integrates several scheduled in-person specialty visits, interdisciplinary referral resources, convenient online consultation channels, and an AI-based automated reminder system into an annual service. This proactive model shifts from "passive patient return" to "active hospital-led management." It clarifies follow-up timelines, diversifies service formats, strengthens doctor-patient communication, and creates a seamless, responsive management loop. For patients, this approach offers clearer management pathways, stronger support, and improved access to care. For the healthcare system, it enables more efficient disease management through optimized resource allocation and early detection of problems. By transforming follow-up from a passive, episodic task into an active, continuous partnership, the program addresses the key shortcomings of conventional models-low adherence, lack of personalization, and poor communication-and holds promise for better clinical outcomes and more sustainable use of medical resources.
Interventions
BEHAVIORALStructured Active Follow-up
Proactive Postoperative Follow-up Program (including scheduled in-person clinic visits, interdisciplinary referrals, online consultation channels, and AI-based automated reminders)
Sponsors
Yu Feng
Study design
Allocation
NON_RANDOMIZED
Intervention model
PARALLEL
Primary purpose
HEALTH_SERVICES_RESEARCH
Masking
SINGLE (Outcomes Assessor)
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
ALL
Age
18 Years to 75 Years
Healthy volunteers
No
Inclusion criteria
* Patients aged 18-75 years (including 18 and 75 years) * Patients who have undergone thyroid surgery (including endoscopic surgery, open surgery, etc.) at this study center * Patients who are conscious, able to communicate in Chinese, and have the necessary smartphone and internet skills to complete outpatient visits (to meet the online functionality requirements of the active follow-up program) * Patients who voluntarily agree to participate in the study and are able to sign the informed consent form
Exclusion criteria
* Patients with other serious illnesses requiring frequent hospital visits or long-term hospitalization (e.g., advanced malignant tumors, severe heart failure, etc.) that may interfere with the assessment of follow-up adherence * Patients with anaplastic thyroid cancer or distant metastasis, who have an extremely short life expectancy and cannot complete one year of follow-up * Patients with cognitive impairment or mental illness who are unable to complete the questionnaires * Patients who plan to move out of the local area within 2 years after surgery and are unable to complete long-term follow-up * Patients who are pregnant, lactating, or planning to become pregnant within one year * Patients currently participating in another clinical study that may interfere with their participation in this study
Design outcomes
Primary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Completion Rate of Scheduled In-Person Clinic Visits | 1 month postoperatively；3 months postoperatively；6 months postoperatively；12 months postoperatively | Compare the proportion of scheduled in-person clinic visits completed within the predefined follow-up time windows (postoperative month 1 ± 7 days, month 3 ± 14 days, month 6 ± 14 days, month 12 ± 30 days) during the first year after surgery between the two groups. Additionally, calculate separately the proportion of patients in each group who completed the in-person clinic visit within each predefined follow-up time window. |
Secondary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Oncological safety | 1 month postoperatively; 3 months postoperatively; 6 months postoperatively; 12 months postoperatively | The proportion of patients in both groups who develop recurrence or distant metastasis during the follow-up period will be collected. |
| Questionnaire completion rate | 1 month postoperatively; 3 months postoperatively; 6 months postoperatively; 12 months postoperatively | The proportion of questionnaires completed by patients in both groups at each time point and within one year after surgery. |
| TSH suppression target achievement rate | 1 month postoperatively; 3 months postoperatively; 6 months postoperatively; 12 months postoperatively | Proportion of patients who achieve the TSH suppression goal within the specified measurement time points. |
| Median time to TSH suppression target achievement | 1 month postoperatively; 3 months postoperatively; 6 months postoperatively; 12 months postoperatively | The median time to achieve the TSH suppression goal within the specified measurement time points. |
| Patient Satisfaction Score | 1 month postoperatively; 3 months postoperatively; 6 months postoperatively; 12 months postoperatively | Assessed using the Client Satisfaction Questionnaire (CSQ-8). This satisfaction score is assessed only for patients in the intervention group, to understand their level of satisfaction with the active follow-up intervention. |
| Timely management rate of post-discharge complications | 1 month postoperatively; 3 months postoperatively; 6 months postoperatively; 12 months postoperatively | The time to management of thyroid surgery-related complications occurring after hospital discharge will be collected, and the rate of timely management of complications will be compared between the two groups. |
| Completion rate and accuracy rate of key examinations | 1 month postoperatively; 3 months postoperatively; 6 months postoperatively; 12 months postoperatively | Whether the thyroid function tests, serum calcium, parathyroid hormone (PTH) tests, and thyroid ultrasound recommended by clinical guidelines and/or the medical team were completed at the time of postoperative outpatient follow-up visits (yes/no), as well as the proportion of missed or unnecessary (excessive) examinations. |
Countries
China
Contacts
CONTACTYu Feng
Outcome results
None listed