We have repeatedly discussed the problem of
over-diagnosis and the consequences: treatment of cancers that would not harm
the person in which they are found — some breast and prostate cancers
definitely fall into this category. A new study just published in JAMA Otolaryngology
now extends this finding to thyroid cancer…..They examined the data on thyroid
cancer incidence, type, tumor size and mortality, and found that the incidence
(new cases) of thyroid cancer nearly tripled (from 4.9 to 14.3 cases per
100,000 persons) between those dates. While that certainly sounds like a
frightening statistic, the authors also found that most of this increase was
due to an increase in papillary thyroid cancer — a type that is not deadly.
Further, many of the tumors were too small to ever become life-threatening. In
addition, they found that the mortality rate from thyroid cancer had not
increased between 1975 and 2009, which also suggests that the increased incidence
was not due to deadly forms of the disease.
In their discussion, the authors note that the apparent
epidemic of thyroid cancer in the United States does not “seem to be an
epidemic of disease.” Instead, their data indicate that the problem is over-diagnosis.
They suggest dealing with it by giving patients the option of active
surveillance, and/or relabeling incidentally identified small thyroid lesions
as something other than cancer.……To Read More…
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