Some cancers are best left alone

Warning: This diagnosis could actually make you sicker than doing nothing

It’s one of the scariest things you can hear during a doctor’s visit.

“Hmm, I want to check that out further.”

Then comes an ultrasound and likely a biopsy. And if he comes back saying “cancer,” well…now you’re really scared.

But if your doctor is talking about your thyroid, there’s some very important information you need to know. And you need to know it before you even set foot in your doctor’s office.

If it ain’t broke…

There’s been an alarming increase in thyroid cancer. Since 1975, the number of people diagnosed has increased 300 percent. Is there an epidemic going on?

Yes, but “it’s largely an epidemic of our own creating,” says Dr. Gilbert Welch, a professor at Dartmouth College who’s been studying this since 2006. “People need to know that there’s a tremendous amount of overdiagnosing going on in thyroid cancer.”

Dr. Welch is the lead researcher in a recently published a study in JAMA about the obsessive search for thyroid tumors. And he is certainly not the only expert sounding the alarm.

So what’s going on?

More and more people are having neck scans to look for artery blockages, and during those procedures small nodules on the thyroid can be found. You doctor might also feel a small lump during an examination.

If a biopsy comes back positive, that could lead to aggressive treatment, most likely surgery. Once you do that, then come the drugs. Drugs you will be on for life.

And none of these procedures may have been necessary.

Now I know you’re probably thinking, “Wait…doesn’t early treatment save lives when we’re talking cancer?”

Not in this case, according to Welch. And that’s because most of these are slow-growing tumors called papillary thyroid cancer. This is a very common, low-risk cancer that doctors say is unlikely to progress enough to even cause any symptoms, let alone to kill someone.

“A lot of people are having their thyroids removed for a cancer that was never going to bother them,” he says.

The most “compelling evidence” that he’s right is that while cases of the disease have tripled, the number of people dying from thyroid cancer has stayed just about the same.

Even the totally mainstream, slice-and-dice American Cancer Society agrees.

A top doc from that group says that there is not one study “showing that thyroid cancer screening saves lives.” In fact, the organization has been against the screening idea for over 20 years.

One proposed idea is to change the name of this kind of thyroid “cancer” altogether. If the “C” word is gone, perhaps these aggressive treatments may end as well.

One thing I know is that surgical fiddling and removal of all or part of your thyroid, as well as the use of radioactive iodine, should not be done lightly. That’s because your thyroid is one of the most important glands in your body. It controls just about everything…from how much you weigh and how much energy you have to how sick or well you feel every day.

So your thyroid isn’t something you can just do away with and not miss!

As Dr. Welch points out, medical care does a lot for those who are sick. But how hard should doctors be looking for “things in well people?”

Sources:
“Thyroid cancer overdiagnosed, many researchers say” Victoria Colliver, San Francisco Chronicle, March 4, 2014, sfgate.com

“Overdiagnosis could be behind jump in thyroid cancer cases” Nancy Shute, February 21, 2014, NPR, npr.org