Thyroid cancer survival rate is high when compared to other cancers. It is a cancer but not as deadly as breast cancer, leukemia or HIV. The average survival rate of this cancer is actually 95%. It means there is a high chance for a patient to get cured. However, you must not be confident regarding this condition. It is still advisable that you get treatment as soon as possible especially if the tumor or lump has not yet become malignant. Plus, you get to spend a much cheaper medical expense if you get treated during the early stages.
Thyroid cancer survival rate
Thyroid cancer mostly affects women than men. There is no specific explanation to that but probably the Adam’s apple of men can somehow give protection against the possible growth of malignant tumors. Yet, causes of thyroid cancer in both men and women are the same. It can be due to hereditary or radiation exposure from a very high level.
There are four major groups of thyroid cancer which are papillary thyroid cancer, follicular thyroid cancer, medullary thyroid cancer, and anaplastic thyroid cancer. Each of these types has differences when it comes to the thyroid cancer survival rate.
Papillary thyroid cancer is the most common type. However, this type of the cancer is easily treated. Depending on the stages, papillary thyroid cancer survival rates range from nearly 100% to 50%. The early stages of this type of thyroid cancer have a 5-year survival rate of 99%. The survival rate of stage 3 lowers down to 93% while the last stage is only 50%.
Commonly affecting older people, follicular thyroid cancer is a little bit more critical than papillary but only during the later stages. Like the papillary thyroid cancer survival rate, follicular has also a high survival rate from the first stages. It only becomes down to 70% if it reaches stage 3. The final stage has also a 5-year survival rate of only 50%.
The third type of thyroid cancer is medullary which is mostly caused through hereditary. Because of the possibility of affecting the lymph nodes, the general medullary thyroid cancer survival rate is 85%. Stage 1 has the only highest survival rate but lowers down up to 80% when it turns into stage 3. The lowest survival rate of this type is 28% when it already reaches the final stage.
The last type is anaplastic thyroid cancer which is the rarest among the four categories. It is very common in men and women who are above 60 years old. The survival rate of this type of thyroid cancer is the lowest. The survival rate of the first and second stages is between 90 to 80%. The stage 3 thyroid cancer survival rate is from 40 to 60%. Once it reaches stage 4, the survival rate is only 10%.
No matter what type or stage of the cancer you have, it is recommended to get treatment right away. Do not wait for another time or day before you seek medical help and treatment. As you can see, the thyroid cancer survival rates can be very high or too low. It does not really matter how high or low the survival rate is. The most important of all is to get cure as soon as you diagnose the illness. The best part of all this is that there is treatment. Surgical removal of the lumps or nodules is the most common way of treating this cancer. Depending on the case, there may be an additional treatment through chemotherapy or radiation therapy. Because of the reliability and effectiveness of these treatments, the general thyroid cancer survival rate has really improved compared to the past few years.