The treatment plan the doctor chooses will include one or more of the
following:
Surgery: This is the most common treatment; either part or the entire
thyroid is removed, along with lymph nodes or any other affected tissue.
External Radiation Therapy: High energy rays are delivered from a
machine and directed to the tumor in order to kill cancer cells or slow the
rate of their reproduction.
Chemotherapy: A family of systematic (circulates through the entire
body through the bloodstream) anti-cancer drugs that can be taken through the
mouth, into the vein, or in shot form.
Thyroid Hormone Therapy: Hormone replacement pills taken to
compensate for the body’s inability to produce the thyroid hormone after surgery.
Radioactive Iodine Therapy: Radioactive iodine can destroy the
thyroid gland without affecting anywhere else.
Survival Rates
Relative 5-year survival rates (as of the 2003 American Cancer Society
statistics) for papillary thyroid cancer are as follows:
Stage I – 100%
Stage II – 100%
Stage III – 96%
Stage IV – 45%
For follicular thyroid cancer:
Stage I – 100%
Stage II – 100%
Stage III – 79%
Stage IV – 47%
For medullary thyroid cancer:
Stage I – 100%
Stage II – 97%
Stage III – 78 %
Stage IV – 24%
Compared to many other cancers, those are pretty good survival rates. And
considering that it's estimated that one in three people will be diagnosed with
cancer in their lifetime, thyroid cancer patients almost seem fortunate. I
think I would prefer those odds to the ones I get with Acute Lymphblastic
Leukemia, but hey, I'm still breathing so I'm not complaining...