Thyroid Cancer
Recent news from cancer researchers in the United States shows that we are making progress in the fight against cancer, but some forms of cancer are still increasing.
In the past 2 decades cancer deaths have declined by 20%, largely due to better diagnosis and treatment of cancer. New medications and better surgical techniques have also helped increase survival rates for a number of types of cancer.
However the rate of deaths of people with thyroid cancer have actually increased during this time and the number of cases of thyroid cancer is also increasing. Researchers suggest that the increase in the number of thyroid cases is partially due to the fact that diagnosis of the disease is much better – people are more likely to be correctly diagnosed early on.
With the increase of thyroid cancer diagnosis, researchers say that “Thyroid cancer is no longer considered to be a rare form of cancer”. Funding has also increased to find better ways to treat and diagnose this form of cancer.
Improvements in imaging and biopsy techniques have helped to increase the diagnosis of the cancer. Medical professionals are also reporting that many thyroid cancers are turning up in larger tumors, but they are unsure as to why it is occurring yet. Exposure to radiation is a risk factor for thyroid cancer, and an increase in radiation throughout the community may explain the increase in prevalence of this form of cancer.
Women are three times more likely to be diagnosed with thyroid cancer, and that is another area which researchers are looking into in recent years. The cancer usually turns up in middle age for most people – with women in their 40s and 50s the most likely to get the disease.
Because the symptoms of thyroid cancer are usually very apparent and testing procedures have improved in the last few decades, it is usually caught before it spreads to other parts of the body. You should look for vocal changes, problems swallowing, pain in your throat, swollen lymph nodes and a lump on the neck.
New developments in gene research may also be able to help identify which people are more prone to the disease.
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