Thyroid Cancer Support

Posts Tagged ‘Variant’

According to the latest experimental studies, heath physicists have encountered safe methods to use a radioactive protein found in scorpion venom to treat thyroid cancer. The venom of a yellow species of scorpions found in Israel is promising to develop into a revolutionary technique to fight different types of tissues affected by cancer.

The Transmolecular Corporation in Cambridge has successfully obtained in the laboratory a radioactive variant of the venom protein. The new substance is called TM-601 and consists of the radioactive substance Iodine-131 and an artificially obtained venom protein. When the artificial compound is released into the blood, the radioactive waves kill the foreign, cancer cells.

Every year, about 17000 persons suffer from this type of cancer and many of them die within the first months of treatment. The new technique promises a remission of the cancer within the first months, after the radioactive compound has been injected into the body. The patient will require no further chemotherapy or traditional therapeutically radiations. The procedure promises a good improvement of the cancer symptoms and a high rate of surviving.

The phase two of the human trial using the new compound shows safe ways of handling the new treatment, even by injecting higher doses of radiations into the cells than during the first stage experiments.

The physician’s duty is to release on the medical market a both safe and legal product with a high index of success. The doctors prescribing this therapy must also protect the family members and the environment of the patient from the radioactivity of the drug.

During the human testing, a group of several patients receive the medication three times within three weeks, while another group gets the therapy six times in six weeks. All patients receive the same quantity of medicine, meaning 200 MCI in the treatment of thyroid cancer. The results are satisfactory compared to other types of therapy used before.

Research scientists discovered that TM-601 is not being assimilated by other tissues besides the cancer cells. The tissue parts near the tumor also receive an amount of radiation but in a lower rate. Before the treatment, patients are administered with high doses of non-radioactive iodine to prevent the assimilation of the drug by the absorbing thyroid, to block the uptake of Iodine-131. The thyroid gland quickly absorbs iodine in normal circumstances.

A part of the radiations received during the treatment are transmitted by the patient’s body to the family members in the first hours after returning from the hospital. However, studies show that the level of radioactive waves spread by the body is not larger than the ones reflected after traditional radioactive therapy.

For more information about thyroid problems or about thyroid treatment please visit this website http://www.thyroid-info-center.com/

Even though thyroid cancer is a disease that cannot be prevented, it is a curable affection and can be treated by using an appropriate treatment. In addition, treatments of thyroid cancer usually include surgeries, radioactive iodine and radiation therapy and depend on the stage and the type of cancers.

To begin with, a common method used in patients with papillary, follicular or medullary is radiation therapy, a procedure which is used if the patient has a risk of recurrence following surgery alone, such as the type of cancer known as Tall Cell Variant. Moreover this procedure is used when the tyroid cancer is adherent to the trachea, has mediastinal lymp node involvment or doesn’t take up RAI. It is important to note that radiation therapy has brought significant results especially for the severe types of thyroid cancer and also for the patients who still present residual cancer after the surgery.

Secondly, even though radiation therapy is considered a efficient method, surgery is still the most common procedure in the treatments for tyroid cancers.

Unlike the partial surgeries, such as the removal of a single lobe of the thyroid gland (lobectomy), an extensive surgery which includes the whole removal of the thyroid gland thyroidectomy (only small remnant of throid tissue with parathyroid glands remain attached to the thyroid). It is important to mention that in many cases when the thyroid gland is not completely removed, the tumor may appear again.

Futhermore, in the cases of severe thyroid cancer, patients may need another treatment after they passed through a surgery. One of the most common procedure is the supplemental thyroid hormone, hormones which replace the ones produced by the thyroid. Patients who already suffered a surgery tend to become hypothyroid and in this way they need extra thyroid hormones in order to keep the remaining thyroid gland inactive through a feedback system.

Much more, another procedure used in the thyroid cancer treatments is the use of radiation iodine (RAI). This procedure is usually used for patients who suffer from tumors with high risk features such as sizes of 1.5cm, tumors which have spread to other tissues and lymph nodes and also thyroid cancer that has come back. What is more, a usual treatment used in many types of cancers and sometimes in tyroid cancer is chemotherapy. In addition certain chemotherapy drugs such as adriamycin, etoposide or cisplatin are usually used in patients who suffer from anaplastic thyroid cancer or affections which occured due to the prolonged exposure to RAI or radiation therapy.

All in all, treatments for thyroid cancer vary from a person to other and even though this type of cancer is curable, specialiasts still try to find new procedure for certain patients that don’t respond to conventional therapy or patients with poor prognosis analastic disease.

For more information about thyroid cancer or about thyroid symptoms please visit this website http://www.thyroid-info-center.com/