Treatment in time

One hears of so many stories of people battling different types of cancer. However, one rarely hears of thyroid cancer, which is one of the most common cancers of the endocrine system. Thyroid cancer is a malignant growth or tumor in the thyroid gland. Thyroid cancer occurs almost three times more often in women than in men.

Today, the number of thyroid cancer cases is increasing at a faster rate than any other type of cancer. Papillary and follicular cancers, often referred to as well-differentiated thyroid cancers (WDTC), are the most common. Generally the prognosis for patients diagnosed with WDTC is very good. Patients can lead healthy lives if they follow the advice of their surgeons and nuclear medicine specialists.

Identifying the problem

So, how does one identify the cancer?  Physical examination, blood tests, scans, thyroid ultrasound and fine-needle aspiration biopsy are some ways to detect the cancer.

But before that, you need to keep a look out for symptoms such as a lump in the neck, pain in the lower front part of the neck, swollen lymph nodes in the neck, hoarseness of voice, trouble in breathing and swallowing. It is crucial to detect these symptoms before they escalate further.

If it is detected, the process of removing the cancerous nodules is quite straightforward. The treatment usually consists of surgical removal of the thyroid gland, ablation of the remnant by radioactive iodine, and long-term monitoring. Following surgery, the surgeon, nuclear medicine specialist or endocrinologist will usually prescribe thyroid hormone replacement therapy. This will replace the hormone the thyroid gland was producing prior to its removal.

Without the thyroid hormone replacement therapy, the patient will become
hypothyroid. Many people who become hypothyroid cannot function normally in their day-to-day life. Hence, to ensure that this does not happen, patients are required to have high levels of the thyroid-stimulating hormone in the blood, which can be given either by withdrawing the thyroid hormone therapy or through the use of recombinant thyroid stimulating hormone injections.

Treatment plan

All of this may sound complex and scary, but it need not be the case. A successful treatment plan involves adopting a collaborative approach and combining the expertise of head and neck surgeons, endocrinologists and a nuclear medicine specialist. The use of recombinant thyroid stimulating hormone injections in the rehabilitation process of the patients has made the treatment of the disease after surgery easier and faster.

There is a very high success rate for the treatment of most types of thyroid cancer when diagnosed and treated early. Despite that, it is important to know that up to one out of three thyroid cancers can recur, sometimes even decades after the initial treatment. For this reason, thyroid cancer requires long-term monitoring to make sure that the cancer has not come back, or if it has, to begin the treatment right away.

(The author is director — molecular imaging and nuclear medicine specialist,  Healthcare Global Enterprises Ltd, Bengaluru)