Have No Fear: Most Cases of Thyroid Cancer Do Not Affect Survival

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/06/120611133922.htm

ScienceDaily (June 11, 2012) — Research presented at the Society of Nuclear Medicine's 59th Annual Meeting reveals that patients with differentiated thyroid cancer live as long as people in perfect health, unless they are in the minority and have reached the most advanced stages of disease. Survival did not vary based on age, sex, or even if patients' cancer had reached the beginning of stage IV.

"This highlights the excellent diagnostic and therapeutic strategies available to patients with differentiated thyroid cancer," says Alexis Vrachimis, M.D., lead investigator for the department of nuclear medicine at University Hospital Muenster, Germany. "The excellent survival rates of almost all of our patients are predominantly due to the multidisciplinary optimization of their diagnostic and therapeutic management, including advanced molecular imaging techniques, highly sensitive laboratory assays, excellent endocrine surgery, individualized high-dose radioiodine therapy and lifelong medical surveillance."