Thyroid Cancer

Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis, also called Hashimoto’s disease is an autoimmune disease in which the body’s immune system attacks the thyroid gland. It was named for the Japanese surgeon who discovered it in 1912 The thyroid is a small butterfly shaped gland in the front of the neck. The thyroid makes hormones called T3 and T4. These hormones regulate metabolism. The thyroid is controlled by hormones of the pituitary gland, which is also called the “master gland.” It is a pea-sized gland located in the base of the brain which, among others, makes thyroid stimulating hormone, or TSH. TSH stimulates the thyroid to make thyroid hormone. With Hashimoto’s disease, the thyroid cells are damaged resulting in the inability to make enough thyroid

When first considering cancer treatment plans, it helps to understand your general options. Types of cancer treatment can be categorized into four modalities: Medical, surgical, radiation, and chemotherapy. Examples of medical options include chemical medicines, immunotherapy, and biological/endocrine therapy. Many surgical options can be minimally invasive and utilize modern technologies to better suit the patient's personalized treatment plan. While you may have heard of radiation and chemotherapy, you may not realize the recent advancements that improve these therapies, creating healthy, successful outcomes every day.

Follow up CT, MRI, or PET scans are employed to determine the size of the tumor, the extent of local invasion, and if distant metastasis has already occurred11. This is particularly important because, although all ATC cases are considered Stage IV cancers, the severity of metastasis dictates the course of treatment. Stage IVA cancers are limited to the thyroid and are often treated with surgical resection, if possible. This is followed by radiotherapy and chemotherapy9,11. For most patients, however, the cancer is unresectable. As such, clinicians typically shift their focus towards a combination of radiation therapy, chemotherapy, and palliative care to improve the quality of

Hypothyroidism is caused by the thyroid’s gland inability to produce thyroid hormone as required by the body. The diagnosis of hypothyroidism requires the laboratory testing of the thyroid stimulating hormone known as TSH. When the TSH is found to be elevated, a clinician should repeat the test along with a free thyroxine (T4) measurement. If the TSH is found to be elevated, while the T4 is normal, the patient is said to suffer from subclinical hypothyroidism. However, if the TSH is elevated and the T4 is low, the diagnosis is primary hypothyroidism (Gaitonde et al., 2012).

The thyroid is a small gland that rests in the lower neck. It is in charge of controlling the body’s metabolism by producing hormones (such as T3 and T4) that tell the body’s cells how much energy to use (2). The pituitary gland is in charge of monitoring the quantity of thyroid hormones in the bloodstream (2).

A fine needle aspiration (FNA) is a form of biopsy usually performed if a nodule is found to determine if it's benign or malignant. Radionuclide scanning (using a radioactive isotope given orally to measure the amount of radioactive iodine the nodule concentrates) can also be performed to determine whether the lump is 'hot' or 'cold.' If a nodule is cold, it will not take up the radioactive material. When scanned, the cold nodule areas will show up lighter than normal tissue or even as totally blank areas. This is due to the decreased activity in that area of the thyroid (it's hypoactive, or not producing much thyroid hormone). A nodule that is cold is more likely to be a cancerous one, though the majority of them still turn out to be

The aggressiveness of each type of thyroid cancer is different. There are four main stages in each of the types of thyroid cancer except for anaplastic cancer (Rubin 91). In the stage I of papillary and follicular thyroid cancer, the cancer is located only in the thyroid and may be found in one or both of the lobes. In stage II if the patients are younger than 45 years of age, the cancer has spread beyond the thyroid. But if the patient is older than 45 years of age, the cancer is only in the thyroid and is larger than 1 centimeter. In stage III, the cancer is usually found in patients older than 45 years of age and has spread outside of the thyroid or has spread to the lymph nodes but not outside of the neck. In stage IV, the cancer is again usually found in patients over the age of 45. It most likely has spread to other parts of the

Many people are diagnosed with cancer each year. It is a rare malignancy however it is the most common endocrine cancer (Pacini 2006, p. 787). Thyroid cancer is a cancer that is prevalent in women who seem to have three times as much of a chance as

Imagine having the disease, cancer. Or, feeling like a social outcast who carries around an oxygen tank to stay alive. Imagine your world was pretty much pointless until finding someone equally sick and equally corky as yourself. This is how 16 year old, Thyroid Cancer patient, Hazel Grace Lancaster lived her life. When her mother see how depressed Hazel is she forces her daughter to attend a cancer support group. She goes through the motions and shares that her lungs are weak but Gus Waters ,Osteosarcoma patient, is not interested in learning about her sickness, but is interesting in her. ¨What? I asked. Nothing, he said. Why are you looking at me like that? Augustus half smiled. ¨Because you're beautiful.¨ (Green 16)

This process originates in the hypothalamus when thyrotropin, otherwise known as TRH, is secreted and passes through the hypothalamic vein (Kapustin, 2010). Once the thyrotropin reaches the TRH receptors, they bind and make genes synthesize a thyroid stimulating hormone, otherwise known as TSH (Kapustin, 2010). When the pituitary makes mature TSH, thyroxin and triiodothyronine hormones are produced and secreted and implements a complicated negative feedback process that low levels of thyroxine and triiodothyronine cause TSH levels to rise and high levels of thyroxine and triiodothyronine cause levels of TSH to decrease (Huether & McCance, 2012). Not enough credit is given to this little thyroid gland on the front of the neck. The thyroid helps regulates powerful hormones that are required for growth and development as well as maintaining homeostasis. If we don’t have enough of the thyroid hormone, myxedema can occur. Myxedema can cause multiple organ complications that lead to serious illnesses. For example, with myxedema affecting the heart, complications such as pericardial effusion and bradycardia can occur and with myxedema affecting the reproductive organs, infertility can occur (Kapustin,

The thyroid gland is found in the front of the neck and produces two main hormones. The hormones are called thuroxine (T4) and Triiodothyronine (T3). Together these hormones regulate the body’s metabolism by increasing energy use in cells, regulate growth and development, help to maintain body temperature and aid in oxygen consumption. These two hormones are regulated by hormones produced by the hypothalamus and pituitary gland. The hypothalamus senses changes in body’s metabolic rate and releases a hormone known as thyropin-releasing hormone (TRH). This hormone then flows through connecting vessels to the pituitary gland which signals it to release another hormone. This hormone is known as thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH). TSH then makes

When determining if you have Graves ’ disease, there are several tests in which the disease can be diagnosed. The following tests are how they diagnose: TSH Test, it detects tiny amounts of thyroid stimulating hormone in the blood; T3 and T4 test, it’s another blood test and doctors look for below levels of thyroid stimulating hormone; Radioactive Iodine Uptake Test, it measures the amount of iodine the thyroid collects; Thyroid Scan, shows where and how the iodine is disturbuted within the thyroid; TSI Test, which isn’t normally necessary to diagnose Graves’ disease, it measures the level of TSI in the

The thyroid gland is in the middle of the neck and lays over the trachea. It is a very vascular endocrine gland responsible for secreting hormones such as thyroxine (T4) and triiodothyronine (T3) (Jarvis, 2015). These hormones stimulate the rate of cellular metabolism (Jarvis, 2015). This gland has two lobes. Both lay posteriorly between the sternomastoid muscle and the trachea (Jarvis, 2015).

Cancer is rapidly becoming one of the biggest causes of death in the United States. Although there are many different causes of cancer, one that is often never talked about, is Thyroid cancer. Thyroid cancer generally occurs in the cells of the thyroid, which is located below the “Adam’s apple”. The thyroid is the producer of many different hormones, which regulate your heart rate, blood pressure, body temperature, and even weight. One of the main reasons this disorder is rarely discussed, would be because of the rarity of Thyroid cancer in the United States. Although, this cancer can be fatal in some cases, it is known to be treatable with the right treatments. (“Thyroid Cancer”)

Although both fine needle aspiration cytology (FNAC) and ultrasound are considered to be the most important tools in thyroid nodules evaluation, uncertain diagnosis of the nodule even by experienced hands still remains a problem and sometimes surgery has to be done for precise diagnosis. The percentage of indeterminate nodules might be small, however a significant number of patients performed surgery for benign disease (3); thus there is a need for a new noninvasive presurgical diagnostic test to avoid unnecessary surgery (4).