Thyroid cancer update
New York Times, By Carolyn Sayre
It’s easy to crunch the numbers on thyroid cancer and assume it is a disease fast on the rise. Incidence has more than doubled since the early 1970s, and for women, it is the cancer with the fastest-growing number of new cases.
But not every statistic tells the obvious tale. Despite the increase, thyroid cancer — a very treatable disease that develops in a butterfly-shaped gland in the neck — is still relatively uncommon.
Many people develop benign lumps, known as nodules in the neck, but only one in 20, or less than 45,000 cases a year, are malignant.
