Neck CT imaging and correlation with thyroid cancer incidence across age, gender and race.

Objective: Incidental detection of thyroid cancers has been proposed as a cause of thyroid cancer increases over past decades, but few studies assess the impact of imaging utilization on thyroid cancer incidence. This study quantifies neck CT prevalence and its relationship with thyroid cancer incidence as a function of age, sex and race.

Design And Patients: Medical records of over 1 million patients at our institution were retrospectively analysed to quantify neck CT prevalence from 2004 to 2011 (study period).