Thyroid cancer is the most common type of cancer in Korea in recent years. The number of young patients with thyroid cancer between the ages of 20 and 40 is increasing. The reason may be because young people do not pay attention to regular ultrasounds, so tumors in the early stages are often missed and gradually develop into cancer. This is also the reason why thyroid cancer screening must be included in the national cancer screening program in Korea.
If ultrasound is not performed in asymptomatic patients, once acquired and forgotten, it will lead to lung metastasis. Thyroid cancer progresses slowly and has a good prognosis, so it is often overlooked compared to other types of cancer. But anyway, thyroid cancer is still cancer, so you have to be very careful. In particular, thyroid cancer has a recurrence rate of 5% after 5 years of surgery and 10% after 10 years of surgery. This is why thyroid cancer patients must manage their health thoroughly throughout their lives.
85% of people with thyroid cancer often have no symptoms until the middle of the neck bulges, is visible and palpable, or there is a feeling of pressure on the airway and esophagus because the disease has spread to the lymph nodes. bleeding on one side of the neck. Therefore, it is necessary to detect and treat at an early stage. Recently, removing the cancerous part of the thyroid gland on both sides is a popular method, but as the disease develops, the tumor will grow larger and the cost of treatment will increase greatly.
Normally, thyroid testing is done during a rectal exam, but we should still have a regular ultrasound every 2-3 years and if someone in the family has this disease, we should have a routine check-up once a year.
