A different approach to thyroid cancer treatment.

[Nanaedake]

A different approach to thyroid cancer from Japan. I like the way it mentions that the patient's view has to be taken into account.

docthyroid.com/takahiro-oka...

[Marz]

Thank you for this post- very interesting too 😊

[shaws Administrator]

It would be good if Endocrinology read articles like the one you've posted.

Do most doctors who deal with thyroidectomies just take the op in their stride and then patient is referred to Endocrinologiy for prescribing.

Many on this forum struggle but no-one in the medical profession seem not to know how to relieve disabling symptoms. Some members, I have read, wish they'd never had the op.

When a patient has continuing symptoms it doesn't seem that they are offered alternatives in an attempt to restore their health. Quite a few on this forum on levothyroxine struggle and thyroid hormone replacements are supposed to restore health but options should be offered as a humane gesture.

[SilverAvocado in reply to shaws]

Yes, I find it shocking. I've noticed that many people pop up on the forum who have been discharged straight back to their GP after the op.

I've been seeing the same endocrinologist who is really a surgeon that removed my thyroid. I thought I was unlucky in that she knows nothing, and had no treatment to offer when it turned out synthetics did not work for me. But in fact I am one of the lucky ones, as at least she is okay with me self medicating and relatively supportive as a human being, although not really as a doctor

[Hidden]

I thought that the piece about Japanese people being less aggressive and more patient than their western counterparts laughable. I am sure the WW2 prisoner's would have thought differently.

I was glad to have my whole thyroid removed in one go especially as it was cancerous.

[SilverAvocado]

Really interesting notes. The whole approach is to preserve as much of the thyroid as possible, and to avoid radiation. So clearly they do not aim for the thuroglobulin blood test as a marker for cancer. It's not explicitly said, but I think strongly implied, that the function of the natural thyroid is far preferable to replacement medication.

In the UK I was surprised going through the process that there was no interest in preserving the thyroid. I found it was very different to the attitude my dentists have had to teeth over the years, and a thyroid seems a lot more precious than teeth.

In fact I and my friends felt there was a strange hostility to my thyroid. Everyone I met in the treatment process just wanted to destroy it, at a certain point they didn't even mention cancer anymore.

I was told late in the RAI process by a nuclear medicine specialist that there was no chance any cancer remained, so they weren't interested in removing that, it was all about thoroughly destroying the thyroid. This was quite a shock to me, because I'd given my consent in the basis that it was clearing out any cancer.

[melodie in reply to SilverAvocado]

Upsetting to hear this, Silver Avocado.