What Type of Thyroid Cancer is Caused by Radiation?

Papillary carcinoma (PTC) is the most common form of thyroid carcinoma diagnosed after radiation exposure, with a higher prevalence of the solid subtype in young children with a short latency period and the classical subtype in cases with a longer latency period after exposure.

Radiation exposure

is a proven risk factor for thyroid cancer. Sources of such radiation include certain medical treatments and fallout from accidents at power plants or nuclear weapons. The thyroid is a butterfly-shaped gland located in the front of the neck, below the larynx. Compared to many other organs, the thyroid gland is particularly sensitive to certain types of radiation.

For example, radiation from X-ray and radiotherapy machines and radioactive atoms are linked to both benign and malignant thyroid tumors. The younger the age of exposure and the higher and more direct the dose, the more likely it is that a thyroid tumor will develop in adulthood. The thyroid absorbs almost all the iodine that enters a body. Therefore, a type of radiation therapy called radioactive iodine (also called I-131 or RAI) can find and destroy thyroid cells that were not removed by surgery and those that have spread beyond the thyroid. Doctors who prescribe radioactive iodine therapy are usually endocrinologists or nuclear medicine specialists.

Research has shown that the risk of thyroid cancer does not increase in people who are routinely exposed to radiation through their work. Proton beams induced quiescent thyroid cells to a pro-apoptotic state and proliferating thyroid cells to an initial apoptotic state, altering the nuclear metabolism of MS. This hypothesis is supported by evidence that papillary thyroid cancer accounts for essentially the entire increase and that the average size of papillary thyroid cancers at the time of detection is getting smaller, with up to 87% of the increase attributable to cancers. A joint analysis of studies that assessed the risk of thyroid cancer after exposure to radiation to the head and neck of children showed a strong inverse relationship between the age of exposure and the risk of thyroid cancer. While most thyroid cancers are curable, there may be different opinions about how to treat thyroid cancer, particularly about what combination of treatments to use and when treatments are performed.

Survey results indicate that the rates of thyroid collar use to reduce exposure to thyroid radiation exceed 48% in dental practice (7.If thyroid cancer is only within the tissues of the neck, both in the thyroid gland and in the lymph nodes, surgery will generally be the first treatment. Having a first-degree relative (father, brother, sister, or child) with thyroid cancer, even without a known hereditary syndrome in the family, increases the risk of thyroid cancer. Thyroid cancer occurs when abnormal cells in the thyroid gland begin to divide and grow uncontrollably. Much of the increased incidence of thyroid cancer is likely to be due to a higher rate of detection of “subclinical disease” fueled by the popularity and improvements in thyroid ultrasound and fine-needle aspiration (FNA) of the thyroid, leading to the detection of small papillary cancers that are otherwise not would be clinically evident. If cancer has spread beyond the thyroid to other organs, such as bones or lungs, it is called stage IV or metastatic thyroid cancer.

Exposure to thyroid radiation at an early age is a recognized risk factor for the development of differentiated thyroid cancer that lasts four decades and probably throughout life after exposure. It is not clear whether radiation-related thyroid cancer has the same clinical behavior as sporadic thyroid cancers. Because the average dose to the thyroid during MCU is very low (0.006 mGy), the estimated risk of developing radiation-related thyroid cancer from MCU was less than 1 per million exposed patients (5) The goal of early detection of thyroid nodules is to reduce the morbidity and mortality of patients thyroid cancers. They found that during CT of the neck, the thyroid gland is exposed to 15.2—52 mGy, and projected that this would increase cases of thyroid malignancies by up to 390 per million people exposed.