THYROID DISEASE

Read and learn more about anaplastic thyroid cancer. For more, visit the Thyroid Disease website ThyroidDiseaseWiki.com.

Q: Which is best hospital for Anaplastic thyroid cancer in India ?
Can some one guide which one is the best clinic/hospital for Anaplastic throat cancer ? Surgery has been done and 30 sittings of IMRT (Radaitaion therapy) provided to the patient, yet doctor is not sure for long life ?

A: TATA Memorial Hospital – Mumbai.(best & they are dedicated)

Q: What type of pain meds would generally be prescribed for a patient suffering from anaplastic thyroid cancer?

A: The range is great depending on the individual. Bone pain from cancer or certain cancer treatment medications is handled differently than nerve pain, etc. Some common ones are acetaminophen, aspirin, ibuprofen, morphine, hydromorphone, hydrocodone, oxycodone, codeine, fentanyl, dilauded, methadone, amitriptyline, imipramine, doxepin, trazodone, gabapentin, prednisone and dexamethasone.
The method of application is also different depending on the individual — pill form, patch form and pain pump form are common types.

Q: what ethnicity does anaplastic thyroid cancer affect the most?

A: Females who are White or Asian have a higher risk of getting thyroid cancer. Anaplastic thyroid carcinoma is usually seen in people older than 65 and all different races. There’s not a whole lot of specific data on Anaplastic thyroid cancer due to the fact that it accounts for 1% of all thyroid cancers, and thyroid cancer accounts for around 1% of all cancers.

Q: Is there any alternative treatement for Anaplastic Thyroid cancer.?
My mother rencety had total thyroidectomy and she got diagonosed with Anaplastic Thyroid cancer. Every where I read that it typically requires a very aggressive treatment plan with surgery, radiation and sometimes even chemotherapy.

I am trying to find for any other possible alternative treatment options like Naturopathy / Homeopathy / Ayurvedic etc.

A: Please don’t pay attention to the person above with the link to “their” aol site, it’s a scam.

I would suggest looking at some of the links I provided below. One option for your mom is to seek out possible clinical trial drugs; you might find that there is a new, possibly more effective drug in the testing stages that your mom can take if she is selected for a clinical trial.

The main website for clinical trials is:

http://clinicaltrials.gov/

and under the term “anaplastic” I found these possibly useful hits (if the link does not work, simply go to clinicaltrials.gov and do a search for “anaplastic”,”anaplastic thyroid” or “anaplastic thyroid cancer”:

http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct/search;jsessionid=5F117F9938258D8A3FA429531D2A42F7?term=anaplastic+thyroid

Some drugs that are being tested now include:

-Imatinib (Gleevec): http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct/show/NCT00115739?order=8
-Combretastatin A4:
http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct/show/NCT00060242?order=9
-Combination Treatments:
http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct/show/NCT00077103?order=3
-Sorafenib:

http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct/show/NCT00126568?order=5

Please check the site out. Note a few things:
-The clinical trials may apply only to certain conditions, so make sure your mom might qualify
-Jot down various drug treatments (many ARE NOT known by the doctor who is treating your mom, since they are brand new in many cases). Make sure you don’t simply ignore a new treatment option simply because your doctor doesn’t know about it.

Here are some other sites that may interest you:

On Thyroid Cancer Generally:

http://www.cancer.gov/cancerinfo/pdq/treatment/thyroid/patient

Treatments for Anaplastic Cancers (conventional)

http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/pdq/treatment/thyroid/Patient/page8

http://www.cancer.org/docroot/cri/content/cri_2_4_4x_treatment_of_thyroid_cancer_by_stage_43.asp?sitearea=cri

Clinical trials:

http://www.cancer.org/docroot/CRI/content/CRI_2_4_4X_Clinical_Trials_for_Thyroid_Cancer_43.asp?rnav=cri

Some Alternative Treatment Options:

http://www.cancer.org/docroot/ETO/ETO_5.asp?sitearea=ETO

Q: can someone suggest treatment for anaplastic thyroid cancer?
my father is 70 years old.he does not have any symptoms except hoarseness of voice

A: First and foremost, he needs to have this thyroid and cancerous lymph nodes surgically removed. Do to its poor responsiveness to Radioactive Iodine, Radiation therapy usually combined with chemotherapy would be the next treatment steps. It’s best to look into clinical trials as well. Good luck!

Q: Is there any way to reduce side effects of external Radiation for Thyroid cancer?
My mother has Anaplastic Thyroid cancer. She has already started treatement for external radiation (one week is over and still 5 more weeks to go)

Is there any way to reduce side effects of external Radiation for

A: Not really. You just have to treat the side effects as they come up. Her doctor should be examining her about once a week during treatment. He should be able to give her something for whatever bothers her during treatment. I had a huge radiation sore throat and also got shingles. But they were right on it with some treatment.
Best wishes

Q: URGENT!!!Does anyone know any Anaplastic Thyroid Cancer patient who’s survived more than 5 yrs aftr detection?
i mean, WHAT IS THE MAXIMUM POSSIBLE SURVIVAL???

A: My cancer was papillary but de-differentiated. Mine is like anaplastic. I recently had a thoracotomy to remove cancer that had spread near the heart. It has been 5 years since my detection. They just keep removing cancer as they find it in PET scans. I have a group if you want to chat further, see the link

Q: My mother was diagnosed with Anaplastic throat cancer. She underwent surgery too and then 25 sittings of IMRT?
My mother aged 54 years is staying in India and getting treatment at Bangalore. She had a swelled neck for a no of years. She was recetly dignosed for Anaplastic Thyroid Cancer in Bangalore city of India. Doctor performed surgery and provides radio therapy 2 times a week since last 4-5 months. He opines that despite medical treatment, he does not know how long my mom’s life is. He says ‘keep ur fingers crossed’. Of course, it triggers trauma for me and my siblings.

I sincerly request you to guide me how to save my mother’s life. Which one is the best clinic or best doctor to treat Anaplastic cancer ?If India has no option,in USA, where should I go ?

A: I sorry to hear about your mother.

One of the biggest factors in how long a cancer patient will live is how soon it was discovered and what it’s “stage” was. That means how much it has spread. Obviously, the more spread, the worse the prognosis.

Your best bet may be to check with the oncology (cancer) department at a major teaching hospital in say Delhi or Kolkat (spelling?). They would need all your mom’s records, just as any center in the US would.

As for US centers, 3 of the best would be The Mayo Clinic, The Cleveland Clinic, and Sloan-Kettering in Ny.

Best of luck to you & your family.

Q: can needle biopsy get benign tumor become malignant cancer?
some people say this is a myth, but this makes sense as some tumors become malignant for some reason at some point. So if biopsy shows the tumor is benign u will have to repeat this biopsy (every month? as some malignant cancers can kill within 3 months like thyroid anaplastic cancer) to make sure it did not get malignant yet – so what’s the point in this procedure unless u actually have malignant cancer in the first place?

A: It is true that some benign tumors can become malignant. It is however very rare for that to happen. It is highly unlikely that a needle biopsy can cause a tumor to become malignant. Malignancy is caused by a mutation below the cellular level. Mutations are either genetic, chromosomal or caused by damage from chemicals, NOT damage from macro pressures. People do not get cancer from blunt force trauma or cuts, they get cancer from the cellular changes caused by radiation or smoking or…etc. A needle biopsy can show if a tumor is benign or malignant and is necessary to be repeated if your tumor is at risk for becoming malignant because early detection could save your life. Some people with non-cancerous tumors elect to have the affected part of their body removed anyway to be sure that the malignancy can never form (e.g. breasts, uterus, prostate). Another reason for repeat needle biopsies is that a needle can only reach one tiny point in the organ and there could be cancer elsewhere that the needle did not touch (e.g. liver). If a doctor has advised you to have a needle biopsy, please do it. It CANNOT cause you to develop cancer. Really.

Q: if scans can early detect cancer why r we not doing them often enough?
i mean e.g. ultrasound and MRI scans that r harmless, and can detect cancer early before it is too late to cure it (some cancer types develop within 3 months rather then 3 years e.g. thyroid anaplastic cancer, etc . why r we not doing them say each 2-3 months to be on safe side? is it due to costs or pure stupidity? better be safe then sorry no?

A: It’s a bit too soon to say that MRI scanning is “harmless.” Better to say that harm has not yet been proven, as an MRI is a relatively novel test. An MRI of the head takes about 45 min in the machine. An MRI of the entire body would take several hours per person. 300 million people x 3 hours each = 900,000,000 hours. That’s 1.3 million months for one pan-scan of the entire US. Not counting the time it takes to look at all those pictures. Even spread among multiple MRI machines, that’s nuts. Every 2 or 3 months as you suggest…..would be inane. Also, what if you find a thyroid nodule or an adrenal nodule or a liver cyst? All three of these are VERY common, and mostly benign. Are you going to sign all of those people up for biopsies now? Those aren’t without risk.

I’m glad you left CT scans out of this, as they do have ionizing radiation and have the potential to cause cancer if you did them enough.

An ultrasound isn’t a great tool for picking up small asymptomatic cancers. You don’t get a great look at the pancreas, you can’t see through bone to the brain, you can’t see through air to look at the lung or the colon.

Also, many cancers don’t have much better death rates even when diagnosed earlier. It seems like survival time is longer, but it just seems that way because you picked it up earlier. It’s called lead-time bias. Diagnosing anaplastic thyroid cancer is a pretty dismal diagnosis no matter what stage you pick it up in. Same with pancreatic cancer.

Q: how often to do routine (ultrasound) scans against cancer to be safe ?
my grandmother died of thyroid anaplastic cancer. it killed her in 3 months. If she was undergoing screening ultrasound scans each year, it still would kill her, as this developed within few months. so we should do these scans each 2 weeks to discover this crap as soon as poss?

this question applies to other cancer types that develop similarly quick and and can not be cure when give symptoms and that you are not safe doing routine scans say yearly….
obviously classic yearly check ups are not frequent enough!

A: You should undergo complete medical checkup every year. If there are abnormal signs and symptoms, then the doctor will conduct further tests including ultrasound scan.

Q: My mothher was diagnosed with Aaplastic throat cancer. She underwent surgery too and then 25 sittings of IMRT?
My mother aged 54 years is staying in India and getting treatment at Bangalore. She had a swelled neck for a no of years. She was recetly dignosed for Anaplastic Thyroid Cancer in Bangalore city of India. Doctor performed surgery and provides radio therapy 2 times a week since last 4-5 months. He opines that despite medical treatment, he does not know how long my mom’s life is. He says ‘keep ur fingers crossed’. Of course, it triggers trauma for me and my siblings.

I sincerly request you to guide me how to save my mother’s life. Which one is the best clinic or best doctor to treat Anaplastic cancer ?If India has no option,in USA, where should I go ?

A: Sanjay, I am so sorry to hear this about your mom. Have you tried prayer? You know prayer is a very strong tool when things are out of our control!!

I feel for you and your siblings and if you all are wanting to bring her to the USA for more treatment….I would suggest MD Anderson, Houston, Texas! It is one of the top hospitals for cancer. They really are on the “cutting edge” scientifically, with cancer.

I have a cousin, she is now fighting her third bout of cancer. This time, it came back beside her spine! A very dangerous place for this to be! Her docotrs gave up on her here! However, she went to MD A nderson and she is doing well! So, yes, I have a family member who has turned to them as well.

I will be praying for you, your Mom and your siblings. May God bless you and guide you!

Q: What r the fastest progressing / aggressive cancers?
i know that thyroid anaplastic cancer can kill u within 2-4 months from its start. when they diagnose it, it is too late

1) what r other cancer types with similar prognosis?

2) what is the way to early detect them and survive?

A: I am not a doctor, so can only speak from experience of having seen what happens to friends, brain cancer killed one of my closest friends within three weks of being diagnosed, the only indication he had of his illness was an occasional sight problem, he thought he needed new glasses, and another friend with liver cancer, which was less than two months from diagnosis to him passing away.

Neither of these cancers are curable and I believe like other cancers are more aggressive the younger the patient.

I hope you receive the answer you need from a professional person, and I truly hope that you have only good news.

Q: what r the fastest progressing / aggressive cancers?
i know that thyroid anaplastic cancer can kill u within 2-4 months from its start. when they diagnose it, it is too late

1) what r other cancer types with similar prognosis?

2) what is the way to early detect them and survive?

A: The cancers that I know the most about that are the most aggressive . . actually have no names . . they are unspecified because they are so abnormal looking that almost no known treatment is effective. They can arise in an unknown location within the body, metastasize, and are so aggressive that no response is seen from chemotherapy . . if they are removed surgically they grow back within weeks . . and radiation is totally ineffective. These types of tumors quickly overwhelm the body and the patient passes before any type of treatment can be done.

Cancer of Unknown Primary

http://www.cancer.org/docroot/CRI/content/CRI_2_4_1X_What_is_cancer_of_unknown_primary_58.asp

Q: can needle biopsy get benign tumor become malignant cancer?
some people say this is a myth, but this makes sense as some tumors become malignant for some reason at some point. So if biopsy shows the tumor is benign u will have to repeat this biopsy (every month? as some malignant cancers can kill within 3 months like thyroid anaplastic cancer) to make sure it did not get malignant yet – so what’s the point in this procedure unless u actually have malignant cancer in the first place?

A: Well, you wouldn’t know it was malignant unless you got the biopsy, so…………. I don’t think, although I am not sure, that biopsy change the disposition of the cells to become malignant eventhough they may do solater due to another cause.