Anaplastic Thyroid Cancer Prognosis
Anaplastic thyroid cancer is one of the most aggressive forms of cancer known to medical science, and it is the single most aggressive form of thyroid cancer. Treatments for this form of thyroid cancer are limited, and since it is usually diagnosed late in its development the prognosis is rarely good news.
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Identification
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Anaplastic thyroid cancer is the least common type of thyroid cancer, occurring in less than 1 percent of diagnosed cases of thyroid cancer, but it is the most serious form of the disease, commonly resulting in death. It is a very aggressive form of cancer that normally forms in people age 60 and over. Some of the symptoms of the condition are loud and labored breathing, a severe cough that can result in coughing up blood, and a noticeable change in the voice that causes the voice to sound rough.
Life Expectancy
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The normal life expectancy for a person suffering from anaplastic thyroid cancer is less than one year from the day he is diagnosed with the condition. Less than 10 percent of patients live three years past the day they are diagnosed with aggressive treatment; less than 5 percent survive five years.
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Decreasing Occurrences
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Over the last several years the number of instances of anaplastic thyroid cancer has been dropping worldwide. One of the reasons given for this decrease is that new procedures used to diagnose cases of thyroid cancer are becoming more accurate, and cases that used to be diagnosed as anaplastic thyroid cancer are now being accurately diagnosed as another form of thyroid cancer.
Other reasons for the drop in anaplastic thyroid cancer are the healthier processing of foods worldwide and improvements in treating other forms of thyroid cancer that can prevent the lesser forms of the condition from becoming the more serious disease of anaplastic thyroid cancer.
Aggressive Cancer
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Anaplastic thyroid cancer is extremely aggressive, and it is normally inoperable by the time it is properly diagnosed. The symptoms of growths and hard lumps under the skin of the neck can seem to appear suddenly on the patient, and then when the lumps are noticed they seem to grow rapidly. The cancer in anaplastic thyroid cancer is much more aggressive than the cancer cells in other forms of thyroid cancer, and in almost 50 percent of the cases the cancer cells will invade the lungs along with the tissue that connects the lungs.
Treatment
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Treatment of anaplastic thyroid cancer can be difficult, as the cancerous cells in this variation of thyroid cancer do not respond to radioactive iodine treatments as those in other forms of thyroid cancer do. Anaplastic thyroid cancer does not respond to chemotherapy treatments either, which leaves the only treatment to be removing the tumors through surgery.
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