Differentiated thyroid cancer is relatively uncommon in pediatrics and had a peak incidence around 1955. This peak is generally thought to be due to prior external beam radiation treatment. In 1960, Winship and Rosvoll reported data from 341 patients ≤ 15 years of age with thyroid cancer; 76% had local metastases (LM) at diagnosis. The current study was performed to determine if the frequency of LM at diagnosis might be lower in more contemporary patients. We reviewed the records of 120 thyroid cancer patients (diagnosed between 1953 and 1994) from the Department of Defense Centralized Tumor Registry. These patients were all ≤ 21 years of age at diagnosis. Histology revealed 83% papillary and 17% follicular. Of these, 50 (41.6%; 95% CI: 32.8 - 51.0%) had LM at diagnosis. We then excluded patients from our series who were over 15 years of age or diagnosed before 1970. Of the remaining 27 patients, 12 (44%; 95% CI: 25.7-64.0%) had LM at diagnosis. When compared to the study by Winship and Rosvoll, the incidence of LM in our series was significantly less(p=0.0008). In addition, when all of our data were analyzed according to the year of diagnosis, there was a trend (p=0.056) for decreased LM from 1953 to 1994. These data suggest the incidence of LM at the time of diagnosis of thyroid cancer may be declining in the pediatric age group. This could be due to less frequent exposure to ionizing radiation or to increased awareness and earlier detection.