(Press-News.org) ROCHESTER, Minn. -- An increasing gap between the incidence of thyroid cancer and deaths from the disease suggests that low-risk cancers are being overdiagnosed and overtreated, a study from the Mayo Clinic Center for the Science of Health Care Delivery finds. The study appears in the current issue of the British Medical Journal.
"High tech imaging technologies such as ultrasound, CT and MRI can detect very small thyroid nodules many of which are slow growing papillary thyroid cancers, says the study's lead author Juan Pablo Brito, M.B.B.S. an endocrine fellow and health care delivery scholar at Mayo Clinic. "This is exposing patients to unnecessary and harmful treatments that are inconsistent with their prognosis."
Dr. Brito says the surgical removal of all or part of the thyroid gland is a costly procedure and includes a risk of complications such as low calcium levels and nerve injury. Surgical removal procedures in the United States have tripled in the past 30 years -- from 3.6 per 100,000 people in 1973 to 11.6 per 100,000 people in 2009.
"Uncertainty about the benefits and harms of immediate treatment for low-risk papillary thyroid cancer should spur clinicians to engage patients in shared decision-making to ensure treatment is consistent with the research evidence and patient goals," Dr. Brito says.
To help provide context for patients, Dr. Brito recommends the development of a new term that connotes a favorable prognosis for low-risk thyroid cancers, such as microPapillary Lesions of Indolent Course (microPLIC). A new term would make it easier for clinicians to offer patients the choice of active surveillance instead of immediate and often intensive treatment. He also calls for research to identify the appropriate care for these patients.
###
Co-authors include John Morris, M.D., and Victor Montori, M.D., both of Mayo Clinic.
About Mayo Clinic
Mayo Clinic is a nonprofit worldwide leader in medical care, research and education for people from all walks of life. For more information, visit http://www.mayoclinic.org/about and http://www.mayoclinic.org/news.
Journalists can become a member of the Mayo Clinic News Network for the latest health, science and research news and access to video, audio, text and graphic elements that can be downloaded or embedded.
EMBARGOED: Hold for release until Tuesday, August 27, 2013, 6:30 p.m. ET; British Medical Journal
MULTIMEDIA ALERT: Video of Dr. Brito is available on the Mayo Clinic News Network.
Shelly Plutowski
507-284-5005 (days)
507-284-2511 (evenings)
Email: newsbureau@mayo.edu
Mayo Clinic: High-tech imaging contributing to overdiagnosis of low-risk thyroid cancers
2013-08-28
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
European hunter-gatherers owned pigs as early as 4600 BC
2013-08-28
European hunter-gatherers acquired domesticated pigs from nearby farmers as early as 4600BC, according to new evidence.
The international team of scientists, including researchers at Durham and Aberdeen universities, showed there was interaction between the hunter-gatherer and farming communities and a 'sharing' of animals and knowledge. The interaction between the two groups eventually led to the hunter-gatherers incorporating farming and breeding of livestock into their culture, say the scientists.
The research, published in Nature Communications today (27 August), ...
New surgical tool may help sleep apnea sufferers, Wayne State research finds
2013-08-28
DETROIT — A Wayne State University researcher's innovative use of a new tool may make surgery a more viable option for sufferers of obstructive sleep apnea/hypopnea syndrome (OSAHS).
Ho-Sheng Lin, M.D., a fellow with the American College of Surgeons and professor of otolaryngology-head and neck surgery in the School of Medicine and Karmanos Cancer Institute, reported promising results in the July issue of The Laryngoscope, for treating sleep apnea using transoral robotic surgery (TORS), a technique whose safety and tolerability have recently been established for removing ...
Contagious savings
2013-08-28
A commercial health insurer's large scale demonstration program designed to improve quality and lower costs for subscribers also lowered costs for Medicare patients who used the same health care providers but were not covered by the plan.
"These findings suggest that provider groups are willing—and able—to make systemic changes that result in higher-value care for patients across the board," said author J. Michael McWilliams, assistant professor of health care policy and medicine at Harvard Medical School and a practicing general internist at Brigham and Women's Hospital.
The ...
Control scheme dynamically maintains unstable quantum system
2013-08-28
A simple pendulum has two equilibrium points: hanging in the "down" position and perfectly inverted in the "up" position. While the "down" position is a stable equilibrium, the inverted position is definitely not stable. Any infinitesimal deviation from perfectly inverted is enough to cause the pendulum to eventually swing down.
It has been known for more than 100 years, though, that an inverted pendulum can be stabilized by vibrating the pivot point. This non-intuitive phenomenon is known as dynamic stabilization, and it has led to a broad range of applications including ...
Winter depression not as common as many think, OSU research shows
2013-08-28
CORVALLIS, Ore. – New research suggests that getting depressed when it's cold and dreary outside may not be as common as is often believed.
In a study recently published online in the Journal of Affective Disorders, researchers found that neither time of year nor weather conditions influenced depressive symptoms. However, lead author David Kerr of Oregon State University said this study does not negate the existence of clinically diagnosed seasonal affective disorder, also known as SAD, but instead shows that people may be overestimating the impact that seasons have on ...
UTHealth, Swedish researchers uncover mystery in blood clotting disorder
2013-08-28
HOUSTON – (Aug. 27, 2013) – Fifteen years ago, a hematologist came to Dianna Milewicz, M.D., Ph.D., with a puzzle: Multiple generations of an East Texas family suffered from a moderately severe bleeding disorder, but it wasn't hemophilia.
"No surgeon would do elective surgery because they bled too much after surgery," said Milewicz, professor and director of the Division of Medical Genetics at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth). "So we collected DNA and plasma from the family and were able to determine that a genetic variant in the Factor ...
University of Tennessee lecturer investigates response to 'bad' art
2013-08-28
An oil painting of a piece of wood with a sad face sitting on the ground or a pink pony with Disney Princess-like hair. Would people come to like these pieces, considered "bad art" by some websites, if they became more familiar with them?
This was a question asked by an international team of scholars including a University of Tennessee, Knoxville, philosophy lecturer.
Websites like Tumblr catalogue pieces of what are deemed "bad art." However, a well-accepted phenomenon called the "mere exposure effect"—supported by the works of psychologist James Cutting, among others—suggests ...
Fractions gain traction with concrete models
2013-08-28
This news release is available in French.
Montreal, August 27, 2013 — If 3 is greater than 2, then ⅓ must be bigger than ½ — right? Wrong. As thousands of students head back to school, many will use exactly that kind of thinking when faced with fractions for the first time. New research from Concordia University shows that for children to understand math, teachers must constantly make the connection between abstract numbers and real world examples.
Helena Osana, associate professor in Concordia's Department of Education, and PhD candidate Nicole Pitsolantis ...
Submarine canyons a source of marine invertebrate diversity, abundance
2013-08-28
Submarine canyons play an important role in maintaining high levels of biodiversity of small invertebrates in the seafloor sediments of the main and northwestern Hawaiian Islands, according to research from the University of Hawai'i at Manoa.
What's more, scientists have used this data to draw new connections between the levels of faunal diversity and the heterogeneity of submarine canyon landscapes at various spatial scales.
"Submarine canyons encompass myriad habitat types," said Fabio C. De Leo, a doctoral graduate from UH Manoa's department of oceanography and the ...
Why are some cells more cancer prone?
2013-08-28
Baltimore, MD—Cells in the body wear down over time and die. In many organs, like the small intestine, adult stem cells play a vital role in maintaining function by replacing old cells with new ones. Learning about the nature of tissue stem cells can help scientists understand exactly how our organs are built, and why some organs generate cancer frequently, but others only rarely.
New work from Carnegie's Alexis Marianes and Allan Spradling used some of the most experimentally accessible tissue stem cells, the adult stem cells in the midsection of the fruit fly gut, ...