Dr. Sheldon Rubenfeld Board Certified in Internal Medicine and in Endocrinology, Diabetes, and Metabolism

Thyroid Cancerv

Cancer is a scary word. Few words can evoke the sense of fear and panic that cancer does. Simply hearing the word can cause patients to react emotionally without evaluating the facts. Once patients learn the facts about thyroid cancer, they may be able to approach the diagnosis without undue fear and apprehension. Indeed, the outlook for most patients with thyroid cancer is excellent. It may be reassuring to know that most thyroid nodules are not cancerous and that patients with thyroid cancer are usually cured.

Types of Thyroid Cancer

The overwhelming majority of thyroid cancers are papillary cancers; the prognosis for patients with this type of thyroid cancer is usually excellent. Follicular cancer, the other type of differentiated (see below) thyroid cancer, occurs less commonly and may be somewhat more difficult to cure than papillary cancer. “Pure” papillary cancers are uncommon; most thyroid cancers called “papillary” are actually papillary-follicular cancers. Hürthle cell cancer has a distinctive appearance under the microscope and is considered a somewhat more aggressive type of follicular cancer.

Medullary thyroid cancer makes hormones, such as calcitonin, by which it can sometimes be identified . Unlike papillary and follicular thyroid cancers, which are rarely familial (hereditary), medullary thyroid cancers sometimes run in families.

Papillary, folllicular and medullary cancers are considered differentiated because the cells of these thyroid cancers closely resemble the cells found in normal thyroid follicules.

Undifferentiated (anaplastic) thyroid cancers account for only a very small percentage of all thyroid cancers, and, fortunately, they are occurring less often than they did in the past. Anaplastic thyroid cancers appear most commonly during the seventh decade of life, more often in women than in men, and are almost always fatal.

The thyroid gland has lymphocytes and other cells found in all tissues in the body; cancers may arise in any of these cells. The most common of these uncommon cancers is lymphoma, cancer of the lymphocytes.