Do you know about thyroid cancer? 6 questions about thyroid cancer, you may wish to look at the answers in the article
The so-called thyroid cancer, as the name implies, is a malignant tumor that appears in the thyroid epithelial tissue. Compared with malignant tumors such as lung cancer, intestinal gastric cancer, liver cancer, and breast cancer, its incidence rate is not high, and it only occupies about 1% of the malignant tumors in the whole body. %about. Influenced by many popular science articles, many people have wrong interpretations and questions about thyroid cancer.
Here are six questions about thyroid cancer that you should ask:
1. Is thyroid cancer more patriarchal ?
First of all, it can be explained that the incidence of thyroid cancer does have a certain relationship with gender, and the cancer rate of women is significantly higher than that of men. Relevant data surveys show that the prevalence of thyroid cancer in men is about 0.8-0.9/100,000, while the prevalence in women is about 2.0-2.2/100,000.
The reason for this is that it is clinically believed to be related to the high level of estrogen in women, because estrogen can affect the growth of the thyroid gland, and when the level of estrogen in the plasma increases, the level of TSH will also increase;
2. Is thyroid cancer gentle?
Usually, nearly 70% of thyroid cancer patients in China have papillary thyroid cancer, which is a well-differentiated cancer that often occurs in young and middle-aged women, especially women aged 21-40. . This cancer type is highly differentiated, grows very slowly, and has a relatively low degree of malignancy, so it has a good prognosis.
However, if the patient develops undifferentiated carcinoma or medullary carcinoma, the prognosis is poor. Especially for undifferentiated cancer, the average survival time of patients is only about 3-6 months. Therefore, the prognosis of thyroid cancer cannot be generalized, mainly depends on the pathological type of the patient;
3. Is thyroid cancer genetic?
A related research survey shows that thyroid cancer does have a certain familial aggregation and genetic predisposition. But not all thyroid cancers are inherited , and some medullary thyroid cancers are autosomal dominant. In some patients with thyroid cancer, there is also a family history . Therefore, people with a family history of thyroid cancer are indeed at high risk of thyroid cancer;
4. What are the causes of thyroid cancer ?
The gender and genetic genes mentioned above are indeed the causes of thyroid cancer. In addition to these two factors, factors such as overexpression or mutation of proto-oncogenes in the body, long-term exposure to ionizing radiation, and lack of iodine ions in the body are also high-risk reasons for thyroid cancer.
5. Thyroid cancer symptoms
Usually, papillary thyroid cancer has no obvious symptoms in the early stage, and most patients go to the doctor because of the discovery of swollen lymph nodes in the neck. As the patient's condition continues to develop, symptoms such as obvious neck mass, hoarseness, difficulty breathing, difficulty swallowing, and pain may appear;
6. Treatment of thyroid cancer
From the current clinical data, surgery is the most important treatment for thyroid cancer , which is the basic treatment for all types of thyroid cancer except anaplastic carcinoma. In addition , thyroid hormone replacement therapy, radiation therapy, targeted therapy, iodine 131 therapy , etc. are also common adjuvant treatments.
Finally, it should be emphasized that although thyroid cancer has poorly differentiated and undifferentiated pathological types, it is fortunate that most thyroid cancer patients in China have very well differentiated papillary thyroid cancer, so there is no need to worry too much.
After suspecting that they have thyroid cancer, what the patient really needs to do is to consult a doctor in time, and carry out relevant examinations and treatment according to the doctor's recommendations.