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Structured Active Follow-up in Postoperative Management of Thyroid

NCT07589660 · Status: RECRUITING · Phase: NA · Type: INTERVENTIONAL · Enrollment: 244

Last updated 2026-05-15

No results posted yet for this study

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.

Conditions

  • Patients After Thyroid Surgery

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Structured 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 & Collaborators

  • Yu Feng

    lead OTHER

Study Design

Allocation
NON_RANDOMIZED
Purpose
HEALTH_SERVICES_RESEARCH
Masking
SINGLE
Model
PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age
18 Years
Max Age
75 Years
Sex
ALL
Healthy Volunteers
No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start
2026-01-31
Primary Completion
2027-04-01
Completion
2028-04-01

Countries

  • China

Study Locations

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Read the full study record

This page highlights key information. For complete eligibility criteria, study locations, investigator contacts, and the full protocol, visit the original record on ClinicalTrials.gov.

View NCT07589660 on ClinicalTrials.gov