April 15-21 is the 28th National Cancer Prevention Awareness Week.
According to the relevant report of the National Cancer Center, in recent years, the incidence of traditional tumors such as gastric cancer and liver cancer has declined, while the incidence of thyroid cancer has continued to increase at an annual rate of 20%.
Many people think that thyroid cancer is "lazy cancer", don't be afraid and don't care, is it true?
Chief Physician Huang Zhichun, deputy director of the Head and Neck Cancer Professional Committee of Jiangsu Anti-Cancer Association and director of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, Zhongda Hospital Affiliated to Southeast University, answered: This is actually a misunderstanding.
Although more than 90% of differentiated thyroid cancers have a good prognosis, 10% of thyroid cancers may invade the larynx, trachea, esophagus, recurrent laryngeal nerve and large vessels in the neck, which is clinically called invasive differentiated thyroid cancer .
In addition, it should be noted in clinical practice that even thyroid cancer microcarcinomas with tumors less than one centimeter are not completely the least risky cancers. Some thyroid microcarcinomas also have cervical lymph node metastasis and distant metastasis.
Some patients feel that thyroid microcarcinoma can be treated without treatment and only need to be observed, but it should be specially reminded that if patients choose to observe, they must be closely followed up and evaluated by B-ultrasound and imaging examinations.
Because there is still no good way to assess whether the thyroid cancer is "indolent", therefore, once there is progress during the observation process, active intervention treatment is required.
When is a thyroid nodule required surgery?
Chief physician Huang Zhichun said that it is generally believed that patients with benign thyroid nodules larger than four centimeters, or those with dyspnea, dysphagia and hoarseness, need surgery.
For the evaluation of the size of benign thyroid nodules, sometimes only B-ultrasound is not enough.
For example, in the case of a sternal goiter, imaging studies are needed to show the size of the nodule and whether there is tracheal compression.
Director Huang believes that retrosternal goiter should not wait for clinical symptoms before surgery, but should pay attention to the following aspects: If the retrosternal thyroid tumor bleeds, it will compress the trachea, cause the patient to have difficulty breathing, and cause the patient to suffocate. It is life-threatening and needs to be operated as soon as possible; most patients with retrosternal goiter do not have obvious lumps in the neck. During chest CT, it is found that due to the slow development of the tumor, it has not been paid enough attention. , There are many underlying diseases, the trachea is compressed and narrowed, and breathing is difficult, which increases the difficulty for anesthesiologists and surgeons, and the risk of anesthesia is also very high.
Correspondent Wang Qian Cheng Shouqin
Yangzi Evening News/Ziniu News reporter Yang Yan