How serious is thyroid cancer?

1. How serious is thyroid cancer?

2. Thyroid cancer presents without any symptoms whatsoever. And the most common symptom is a lump in the neck. Less commonly, patients may have symptoms including hoarseness or change in voice. Most thyroid cancers are curable. In young patients, less than 50 years of age both papillary and follicular cancers have more than 98% cure rate if treated properly. Typically these cancers are treated with at least complete removal of the lobe of the thyroid gland that harbors cancer. Only expert thyroid surgeons should perform thyroid surgery for the nodules that may be cancer. Bottom line is that most thyroid cancers are papillary thyroid cancer and this is one of the most curable thyroid cancers. More than 98% of the patients with papillary thyroid cancer remain alive after 5 years. Medullary cancer is significantly less common but has the worst prognosis. Medullary nodule cancer tends to spread to a large number of lymph very early and therefore requires much more extensive operation than the more localized thyroid cancer. Medullary thyroid cancer may also be a genetically inherited cancer. Medullary thyroid cancer requires complete removal of the thyroid plus a dissection to remove the lymph of the front. The least common type of thyroid cancer is anaplastic cancer, which has a very poor prognosis. Unless diagnosed early and found during thyroidectomy, in most cases this leads to an untimely death. This cancer is detected after it spreads and is the most incurable cancer known to mankind. So if you ask how serious is thyroid cancer? It can be very serious, but at the same time, it is curable too with an effective thyroid cancer treatment.