Talk:Thyroid cancer

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Please improve this article if you can. (September 2007)

What about medullary or anaplastic thyroid cancer? I'm not an expert and therefore don't feel qualified to contribute, but I'd appreciate if someone did.

Well, you could list them on the page, and someone else will build the article from there. That is the power of the wiki. JFW | T@lk 00:20, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Role of iodine

We all know about iodine prophylaxis for radiation incidents, but to mention this concept in the intro was a bit too much. Now I have no idea where to put it; does this apply to all four forms of TC or just to follicular or papillary?

Is there any use for radiotherapy in anaplastic TC? JFW | T@lk 16:30, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

This is about thyroid cancer, not radiation contamination. The majority of thyroid cancers in the developed world, from memory, are not traceable to a radioactive incident - so the topic just isn't very relevant here. A small number of papillary are inherited. Most we just don't know the origin of.

The radiation contamination thing also does not apply to medullary and anaplastic.

[edit] Diagnosis

I put some random info in the diagnosis section, and dumped a ref. or two at the bottom of the page, but I'm not really qualified to edit this: Just interested because my wife got a nodule (good to see it's probably nothing bad!!) --Slashme 12:46, 2 November 2005 (UTC) This is still pretty random two years later. Someone needs to do some work on this! Maybe if I have some time over the holidays.... —Preceding unsigned comment added by Woodforthetrees (talk • contribs) 12:05, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Papillary thyroid cancer & Chernobyl

I am not a doctor, but I heard on RFI that papillary thyroid cancers is necessarily induced by radioactivity. Has anyone here any info about that? It would help avert an edit-war on the Chernobyl disaster article, since a French study by the Institut de radioprotection et de sûreté nucléaire claims that no "direct links can be found between the increase of thyroid cancers in France and Chernobyl radioactive fallout", although it also states that papillary thyroid cancers have tripled since Chernobyl. This, according to RFI (who was interviewing the CRIIRAD and the French Association of THyroid-Affected Patients), means the study contradicted itself, and that there is in fact a direct link observable between Chernobyl and the increase of thyroid cancer. Can anybody here confirm or infirm if papillary thyroid cancers are always induced by radioactivity? Lapaz 17:21, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

It's impossible to show that thyroid cancers are always induced by radioactivity, since there is always background radiation present. There is incontrovertible evidence, however, that exposure to excess radiation leads to increased risk of thyroid cancer. —Brim 16:31, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes, and increased awareness leads to increased diagnosis as well. Most papillary thyroid cancers cannot be traced to radioactive incidents, so it does not follow that a rise in papillary thyroid cancer rates indicates a rise in radiation incidents. A perfectly valid hypothesis would be that following chernobyl, a lot of people worried about thyroid cancer and checked their necks for nodes. The minute they found anything, they went to the doctor. Since it is known that a very high proportion of the population carries tiny bits of papillary thyroid cancer around without it ever growing into a serious illness (estimates vary - will find the references), it would be very likely that more "cases" would turn up if more nodules were being investigated.

[edit] Annual scans not recommended any more (Follicular and Papilliary)?

Is this true? Is there are reference for this?

—Preceding unsigned comment added by Verilog (talk • contribs) 00:53, 8 August 2006

[edit] Cleanup

I have tagged the article for cleanup. It is very disorganized, with many internal inconsistencies. --Una Smith 16:36, 21 September 2007 (UTC) Here here! Thank you! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Woodforthetrees (talk • contribs) 12:11, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] What is a "modality"

The statement "radioactive iodine is a commonly used modality" is opaque. Even after consulting a dictionary I don't know what it means. Does "modality" mean "treatment"?

Agemegos (talk) 23:25, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

You're right. FWIW, in this specific case it stands for "treatment modality" (treatment type/approach/etc). I've improved the lede section a bit. Mira Gambolputty (talk) 16:28, 29 January 2008 (UTC)