Thyroid cancer is still considered as one of the rare cancers, accounting for between 1 to 2 per cent of all malignancies. It was only in the late 1980s when people outside the medical profession began hearing of thyroid cancer. Even so, thyroid cancer incidence is not really increasing as fast as other cancers, according to researchers who track overall incidence of various cancers (based on the number of cases per 100,000 people per year). Thyroid cancer appears to be increasing at a steady, if modest, annual rate of 6.6 percent among females, and 4.2 percent among males.
There are four types of thyroid cancer: papillary, follicular, medullary, and anaplastic.
Papillary Thyroid Cancer
Papillary tumours may be the most common, comprising over 75 percent of all thyroid cancers. Fortunately, the survival rate with this type is high: 80 to 90 percent of patients diagnosed for papillary thyroid cancer remain alive ten years after they are diagnosed.
Once there is a diagnosis for papillary thyroid cancer, things may get a bit bewildering because there are sub-types of papillary cancers. These variations refer to particular cell variants that can make the papillary cancer become more aggressive than its normally slow-growing pace. The tall cell variant of papillary thyroid cancer is particularly rapid in growth thus not very susceptible to doses of iodine.
Follicular Thyroid Cancer
About one-tenth of thyroid cancers are of the follicular variety, and it tends to afflict people over age 40 more often than younger adults. Age is the major determinant in figuring out the treatment strategy for follicular thyroid cancer, as this type appears to be more aggressive on patients over forty. Younger patients exhibit better response to radioactive iodine therapy.
Medullary Thyroid Cancer
Medullary thyroid cancer occurs in less than a tenth of thyroid cancer cases annually. Roughly a third of such cases may be due to an inherited defective gene, but the large majority of people who develop medullary thyroid cancer do so for non-genetic reasons. This type of cancer is generally slow-growing, but it can be considered very dangerous because of the absence of effective treatment methods once it gets aggressive and spreads to other parts of the body. The RET proto-ocnogene test has proved very useful for screening those with the inherited medullary thyroid cancer gene.
Anaplastic Thyroid Cancer
The rarest among the four types, anaplastic thyroid cancer is also the deadliest, accounting for 40 percent of all thyroid cancer fatalities. Doctors are limited to palliative treatment. To relieve breathing difficulty induced by the rapidly enlarging tumours, doctors resort to tracheostomy (opening a hole in the trachea). This method was used on William H. Rehnquist (1924-2005), the 16th Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, a few months before he succumbed to this horrible thyroid cancer.
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