Thyroid Cancer Prognosis

Question: Can anyone explain papillary thyroid cancer in layman's terms? What is the prognosis for a 14 year old female?

Answer: Papillary thyroid cancer is the most common form of cancer of the thyroid gland, which is a major gland in the front part of everyone's neck. It is almost always treated surgically and is almost always cured. It can spread locally, but rarely spreads widely.

Question: Has anyone any information about Thyroid cancer in dogs? My 7 year old dog had a tumour removed 11 months ago, the vet said it was thyroid carcinoma and tests showed it is aggressive, however he said that as it is rare in dogs he could offer no prognosis. I know ther is no treatment available. Has anyone had a dog with thyroid cancer? What happened to them? So far my dog is happy and 'healthy' and shows no signs that anything is wrong. I would like to know what signs that I should look out for in the future, and what to prepare myself for.

Answer: My Sheltie had it when she was 9 years old, I felt the lump and took her in they removed it the next day. I was told that she needed radiation as well. After she came home I took her to another vet for the treatment. They wanted to do a series of treatment, but it made her so sick, I did some research only to find that with it or without it she had at best 6 months to live. So I didn't take her back and just went to a health food store and got what they told me was best for Thyroid Carcinoma. Well, my sweet Tasha lived to be 17and half years old to the day. So she lived 8 more years than I was told. To this day I don't know if it was the one treatment of the radiation or the supplements that saved her, all I know is that she was a born again Sheltie even her color came back, she was a Tri Color (Black,White & Tan) and she never got grey hairs after that. If anything she looked much younger than she was. So that's my experience with it and I hope it helps in some way. Just love your dog everyday that you have together, that's what I did. All the best;^)

Question: I had papillary thyroid cancer, how long will I live? I read it on the internet that the prognosis for a person over 50 years old that had papillary thyroid cancer the size of a golf ball (which I had) could only live for 10 years or less. I would really like to know because I want to get my house in order. I am not afraid. So would somebody please tell me.

Answer: Madam , 1st of all life and death is in the hands of god ,,, so no one can tell you ever how long will you live ,,, but what i can tell you is some statistical facts based on patients diagnosed with Papillary carcinoma of the Thyroid gland ,, before this i want to bring you some good news i hope: the treatment for this type of cancer is surgical resection and it is curative in most of the cases even if the caner cells metastasized (usually to the cervical lymph nodes) they are very responsive for Radiotherapy with Iodine 131... now the prognosis is EXCELLENT , 20 years survival = 90% which means , after the time of diagnosis with 20 years you will find patients with this type of cancer are still alive and if they died it is probably due to another cause rather than the actual cancer ,, so you are lucky to get this type of cancer , because other types like the anaplastic carcinoma of the thyroid is very aggressive and rapidly fatal

Question: Cancer Prognosis for resistant lymphoma? I'm a 29 year old female who was originally diagnosed with mediastinal diffuse large b cell lymphoma in 2006.No family history of any type of cancer. I did six rounds of CHOP-R, which shrank the tumor from 14 cm to 2 cm. I did 3 rounds of maintenance rituxan and a PET scan showed the mass had grown to 5 cm, so I tried zevalin immunoradiotherapy. My most recent scan shows the mediastinal mass has grown about an inch and has also spread to my stomach and thyroid. The oncologist wants to proceed with ICE chemotherapy but I wanted to know: a. statistically, what are my odds of beating this at this point b. if i decline treatment, how long would I live?

Answer: I:m sorry to hear of your illness....I hope this site can answer your question. http://www.virtualcancercentre.com/diseases.asp?did=727 Good Luck and God Bless.

Question: Thyroid cancer blood test, VERY high T4, but low tsh.? I am wondering what this means. My doctor didn't have time to explain the results of this. My recent blood work came back saying my T4 was really high, 35 or something like that. I am having slight simptoms of hyperthyroidism. I am on sythroid, 300mg dosage every day, very high dosage. I have been on this dosage for the past 6-7 months. I had a chest and neck x-ray done about a month prior to the blood work and it came out completely clear, no signs of cancer. I had the tumor removed and I have had radioactive iodine treatments done over the past two years. Since then my prognosis has been very good. So what is going on? Am I having a recurance or is my medication too high and maybe needs to be reduced? Or was the blood test a mistake? I had a re-test done last friday and im waiting on results today. I am very confused and need some answers. 19 male.

Answer: TSH is Thyroid Stimulating Hormone. Its job in the body is to signal the thyroid gland to work harder. A high level means that your thyroid is underproducing and your body is trying to tell the thyroid to make more thyroid hormones such as thyroxine (T4). A low level means that there are plenty of thyroid hormones in the body and no more production is needed. It is an indirect measure, but pretty useful. T4 is one of the thyroid hormones (thyroxine). This is a direct measurement. So, it seems to me that a high T4 with a very low TSH would mean that your supplement is a little high and that your dose should be decreased. (High T4 means a high level of the supplement, and low TSH means the body doen't want any more.) My understanding of this is pretty basic though, so don't take my ideas too much to heart. Talk to your doctor, even if you have to slow him down a little.