Post-surgical follow-up of thyroid cancer and Chinese medicine treatment

       Thyroid gland is one of the largest endocrine glands in the body. Thyroglobulin is a protein produced by thyroid follicular epithelial cells and is the main component of the colloid in the follicular lumen and the source of thyroid hormones. It is an antigen unique to thyroid tissue and has important clinical significance. It is often detected in the sera of normal individuals and patients with various thyroid disorders. Its antigenicity, serum content and tissue localization have been used to study the pathogenesis of thyroid diseases, diagnosis and evaluation of efficacy after treatment. It has been found that serum TG remains high in patients with thyroid cancer with distant metastases after total thyroidectomy and postoperative treatment with I radiation. In contrast, serum TG is often elevated in patients with differentiated thyroid cancer originating from thyroid cells, and the degree of elevation is related to the size of the tumor, the degree of differentiation and the presence of distant metastases. Currently, serum TG is mainly used for the follow-up of differentiated thyroid cancer, acting as a marker of recurrence or metastasis.  The treatment of post-surgical thyroid cancer in TCM is based on the methods of supporting and eliminating evil, activating blood circulation and removing blood stasis, and eliminating swelling and nodules. In the early stage of thyroid cancer, the tumor develops rapidly. Although the cancer toxicity is strong at this time, the positive energy is not yet lost, so it should be actively removed by surgery or radiotherapy and treated with Chinese medicine at the same time.