Thyroid tumour type no longer deemed a cancer: what this means for patients
With the name change, made to counter problem of overdiagnosis, sufferers will no longer face radiotherapy or surgery to remove thyroid gland, saving them money and tears. Other tumours may now be reclassified, doctors hope
A type of thyroid cancer that affects an estimated 45,000 people in the world, including 23,250 people in Asia, has been given a name change and reclassified as benign by an international panel of pathologists and clinicians.
“The reclassification of this thyroid tumour will spare the patients extensive surgery [removal of all the thyroid instead of only one half] and radioactive iodine therapy, as well as the psychological and social impact [e.g. denial of life insurance] of a cancer diagnosis,” says Dr Ronald Ghossein, director of head and neck pathology at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Centre in New York, and one of two dozen experienced pathologists from seven countries involved in the study.
“Of course, a lot of money will be saved. Avoidance of radioactive iodine therapy alone will save U$5,000 to US$8,000 per patient in the USA.”
More than that, Ghossein and colleagues hope this reclassification may encourage other cancer specialists to downgrade very indolent forms of some common cancers – such as prostate, breast and lung – to benign.
