Focus on early diagnosis and treatment of thyroid cancer

       In recent years, the incidence of thyroid cancer is increasing year by year, doctors and patients should pay high attention to it. Many patients think that their thyroid nodules are long-lasting and do not have any uncomfortable symptoms, so they will not be cancerous or will not become cancerous, and therefore do not go to the hospital.  As a result, some thyroid cancer patients lose the chance of early surgery. Some GPs also make the same mistake and prescribe many kinds of drugs to their patients in an attempt to eliminate the nodules, resulting in delayed surgery, so that some patients cannot be completely removed and the cancer remains and recurs recently.  Once a nodule is found in the thyroid gland, it is important to visit a qualified hospital and first have an ultrasound and thyroid function test. If the ultrasound indicates an obvious hypoechoic nodule with blood flow, dotted calcifications or high density areas, further examination should be done at a larger hospital thyroid specialist to rule out thyroid cancer. If necessary, needle aspiration biopsy can be performed.  Patients with high suspicion of thyroid cancer should go to a qualified thyroid ward for surgery as soon as possible, because thyroid cancer surgery is a difficult and risky surgery. The surgeon should not only be proficient in theory, but also in manual skills, and should be careful and patient as well as willing to take risks.  The surgical procedure for thyroid cancer varies from case to case, with total thyroidectomy, lymph node dissection in the central region, and selective or functionally preserved lymph node dissection in the lateral cervical region being added on top of lobectomy as appropriate. Only with standardized surgery can we reduce the residual cancer foci, avoid recurrence, and improve the long-term survival rate and quality of life of patients.