Follicular thyroid cancer, 101

Follicular thyroid cancer comes from the follicular cells of the thyroid. as i said, i hope, in my last blog, these follicular cells produce and store thyroid hormone. this type of thyroid cancer usually occurs in older adults- aged 50 and older. this type of cancer accounts for about 10 to 15 percent of all thyroid cancers. hurthle cell cancer is a rare, thankfully, and usually more aggressive form of follicular cancer. hurthle cell cancer is less likely to respond to the RAI, than say " regular" papillary or " regular" follicular." it is more likely to spread into the neck via the blood vessels, generally not the lymph nodes, thus spreading the cancer to other parts of the body. those parts usually  being the lungs and bones.

a term that one might come in contact with is " differentiated thyroid cancer" which includes both papillary and follicular types of cancer. this just means that they are somewhat similar to a non-cancerous, or normal, thyroid cell. differentiated thyroid cancers have a higher survival rate because of the iodine link to normal thyroid cells. normal and cancerous thyroid cells of differentiated thyroid cancers will both take in iodine. if you feed the differentiated thyroid cancer cells radioactive iodine, they will eat it up like a normal, non-cancerous thyroid cell. but it will hopefully kill them and their buddies,too. in this situation, it is better to have a differentiated thyroid cancer than a non-differentiated one. but of course, there are many other factors to consider- staging just being one.

the survival rate for both papillary and follicular thyroid cancers is around 90% if diagnosed early. the rate of recurrence is still around 30% for follicular as well as papillary, and recurrences of follicular can occur decades later after the initial diagnosis and treatment. as with all types of thyroid cancer, tests, blood work and monitoring will need to be done for the rest of a patient's life. the good cancer? i think not.

now on to the next blog... it is a combo of two very serious thyroid cancers: medullary and anaplastic.