Treatment Of Thyroid Cancer

Your options for the treatment of thyroid cancer depends on the type and stage of thyroid cancer, your health and your preferences.

In most cases, thyroid cancer can be improved by the treatment.

Surgery

Most people with thyroid cancer surgery to remove all or most of the thyroid. Operations used to treat thyroid cancer are:

Delete all or most of the thyroid (thyroidectomy). Surgery to remove the entire thyroid is the most common treatment for thyroid cancer. In most cases, the surgeon makes small rim of thyroid tissue around the parathyroid glands to reduce the risk of damage to parathyroid glands. Sometimes surgeons call a near-total thyroidectomy.

Removal of lymph nodes in the neck. When you remove the thyroid, the surgeon may remove the enlarged lymph nodes in the neck, and test them for cancer cells.

Thyroid surgery is performed by making an incision in the skin at the base of your neck. Thyroid surgery has a risk of bleeding and infection. Damage may occur to the parathyroid glands during surgery, later, leading to low levels of calcium in your body. There is also a risk of accidental damage to the nerves connected to your vocal cords, which can cause vocal cord paralysis, hoarseness, soft voice, or trouble breathing.

Thyroid hormones

After surgery for thyroid cancer, taking medication for thyroid hormone levothyroxine (Levothroid, Synthroid, others) for life. This pill has two advantages: it provides the missing hormone is normally produces thyroid, and suppresses the production of thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH) in pituitary gland. High levels of TSH may stimulate remaining cancer cells to grow.

You will probably have blood tests to check your thyroid hormone levels every few months until your doctor finds the right dose for you.

Radioactive iodine

Radioactive iodine treatment uses high doses of a form of iodine that is radioactive. Treatment with radioactive iodine is often used after a thyroidectomy to destroy any thyroid tissue remaining in good health, and areas of microscopic thyroid cancer, which was not removed during surgery. Treatment with radioactive iodine can also be used to treat thyroid cancer returning after treatment, or spreads to other areas of the body.

Radioactive iodine therapy comes as a capsule or liquid that you swallow. Radioactive iodine is taken especially for the cells of the thyroid and thyroid cancer cells, it is low without damaging other cells in the body.

Side effects may include:

Nausea

Dry mouth

Dry eyes

Altered taste or smell

Pain with thyroid cancer cells have spread, like the neck or chest

Most of the radioactive iodine leaves your body in the urine during the first days after treatment. Meanwhile, give instructions for precautions to take to protect others from radiation. For example, you may be asked to temporarily avoid close contact with other people, especially children and pregnant women.

External radiation therapy

Radiation therapy may also be administered topically with a machine that seeks high-energy beams, the exact points of the body. Called by external radiation therapy, this treatment is usually given a few minutes at a time, five days a week, about six weeks. During treatment, you are still on the table when the car moves. External beam radiation therapy is used usually used to treat thyroid cancer that has spread to the bones.

Chemotherapy

Chemotherapy is a medical treatment that uses chemicals to kill cancer cells. Chemotherapy is usually given by infusion into a vein. The chemicals travel through the body and kill rapidly growing cells, including cancer cells.

Chemotherapy is not commonly used in the treatment of thyroid cancer, but may benefit some people who do not respond to other, more standard treatment.