Early signs and symptoms of thyroid cancer

Thyroid cancer often exists as a lump or nodule in the thyroid and usually does not cause any symptoms. In order to detect thyroid cancer, blood tests generally do not help and thyroid blood tests such as TSH are usually normal, even when cancer exists. 
Often, doctors recommend neck examination, in which thyroid nodules and thyroid cancer are found.  Thyroid nodules can be discovered incidentally on imaging tests such as CT scans and neck ultrasound.

Occasionally, a patient can themselves detect thyroid nodules by noticing a lump in their neck. Rarely, thyroid cancers and nodules may cause symptoms. Patients with all these cases may experience pain in the neck, jaw, or ear. An enlarged nodule may cause difficulty with swallowing, breathing or can cause a tickle in the throat. And sometimes, hoarseness can be caused if a thyroid cancer invades the nerve that controls the vocal cords. The symptoms of thyroid cancer in females and males are common. 

Causes and Risk Factor of Thyroid Cancer: Thyroid cancer usually develops slowly, without any obvious signs or symptoms. However, sometimes many people complain about more than one of the following:
•    A painless lump in the throat/neck.
•    Trouble swallowing 
•    Difficulty breathing
•    A hoarse voice
•    Swollen lymph glands in the neck. 

The existence of a painless lump in the neck is one of the most common signs. 

Risk Factors: Behind the exact cause of thyroid cancer is not known, but several existing factors might be responsible in order to increase the risk of developing it. 
The existence of such risk factors does not mean that a person will develop thyroid cancer. In most cases, there are no known factors in people with thyroid cancer. 

Radiation Exposure: Having radiotherapy to the head and neck area as a child, or living in an area with high levels of radiation in the environment, such as a nuclear accident site is responsible for a small number of thyroid cancer.  The time period of development of thyroid cancer is 10–20 years after the radiation exposure. 

Family History: Numerous people out there, who inherit a faulty gene called the RET gene, which is responsible for increasing their risk of developing thyroid cancer. This gene can cause familial medullary thyroid cancer (FMTC) or cancer multiple endocrine neoplasia (MEN).

People with first-degree relatives (parent, child or sibling) also are at the high risk of getting papillary thyroid cancer. 
People with certain thyroid conditions, such as thyroid nodules, an enlarged or inflammation in the thyroid, only slightly increases your chance of developing thyroid cancer.

Types of Thyroid Cancer: Certain types of thyroid cancer are enlisted as follows:

Papillary Thyroid Cancer: This type of cancer is quite common, making up approximately 70% to 80% existence of all thyroid cancers. This thyroid cancer (Papillary) may occur at any age. This cancer grows slowly and then may spread to lymph nodes in the neck.
In comparison to other cancers, papillary cancer has an excellent outlook, even if there is spread to the lymph nodes. 

Prognosis of Papillary Thyroid Cancer: The most common thyroid cancer (papillary and follicular) has a very good long-term prognosis, especially in case of cancer is detected only in the thyroid or the nearby lymph nodes in the neck. Even if it is in the metastatic stage the outcome can still be very good. 

Follicular Thyroid Cancer: This type of cancer makes up approx 10% to 15% existence of all thyroid cancers. This cancer (Follicular) can expand to lymph nodes in the neck, but chances are very common than with papillary cancer. It would be absolutely alright if we say follicular cancer is also more likely than papillary cancer to spread to distant organs, particularly the lungs and bones. 

Medullary Thyroid Cancer: This thyroid cancer (MTC), accounts for about 2% existence of all thyroid cancers. About 25% of all MTC could be genetic and generally runs in families and is associated with other endocrine tumors. For affected family members there is a test for a genetic mutation in the RET proto-oncogene can lead to an early diagnosis of medullary thyroid cancer and, as a result, to curative surgery. 

Symptoms of Medullary Thyroid Cancer: Some symptoms that may appear include: 
•    Hoarseness
•    Difficulty breathing or shortness of breath. 
•    Difficulty swallowing or an unusual sensation when swallowing. 
•    Lump or growth at the base of the neck. 
•    An abnormally large lymph node that fails to spontaneously shrink over a few weeks/ time. 

Anaplastic Thyroid Cancer: Anaplastic is the most advanced as well as aggressive thyroid cancer and the least likely to respond to treatment. This type of thyroid cancer (Anaplastic) is quite rare and is found in less than 2% of patients with thyroid cancer.

Stages of Thyroid Cancer: The stages are I, II, III, and IV (or use the common numbers 1, 2, 3, and 4). The stage specified the size of cancer, type, and whether and where it has spread at the time of diagnosis. Patients with surgery (if they have surgery) and further testing will help in order to determine the stage of your cancer.
In Stage I or II, a tumor, considered as a ‘low risk’ with excellent to a good prognosis, whereas Stage III and IV tumors are specified as high risk. 

What is Stage 4 Thyroid Cancer: In patients 55 years of age or older: Cancer has spread to other parts of the body outside the neck area, such as bones and lungs or nearby neck lymph nodes, including large blood vessels.

Treatment For Thyroid Cancer: Your treatment will be tailored to your own circumstances, including your type of thyroid cancer, whether it has spread to local lymph nodes or distant sites, patient's age at the time of diagnosis, and also some other factors.

In this way, for thyroid cancer, there is an FDA and EMA approved lenvatinib medication for the treatment of progressive, radioiodine refractory differentiated thyroid cancer.

Lenvatinib: Lenvatinib (Lenvima) is an anti-cancer drug which acts as a multiple kinase inhibitor against the VEGFR1, VEGFR2 and VEGFR3 kinases for the treatment of certain kinds of thyroid cancer and for other cancers as well. 

Take Lenvatinib 4 mg once daily, with or without food, at the same time each day. 
In the missed dose circumstance, take your missed dose within 12 hours, skip that dose and take the next dose at the usual time of administration.

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