Pathology Results

Hey Runner, 

Most thyroid cancers are usually slow growing, and aggressive doesn't necessarily mean it's fast growing. It can mean that it's prone to spread, which yours has. 

Your 5.3cm lump is classed as on the large side, and if that was all you had they'd be recommending RAI because any lump bigger than 4cm is seen as higher risk. Then with the 3.5cm lump, if that was all you had, they'd be saying it was up to you but as it's close to the 4cm, they'd recommend you have it.

So not only do you have both of those, but you've also got metastatic spread to your lymph nodes. So it's broken out of your thyroid and invaded your lymphatic system. So regardless of lump size, if it's escaped the thyroid then they recommend RAI. So yours is aggressive in that there are two instances of it in your thyroid, and it's spread.

Hope that helps. 

Lass

Xx

Thanks Lass

That has cleared a lot up. I come out of appointments and it’s not till later do I wish that I had asked more questions. I don’t see my consultant until November as I have been passed over to another department for RAI treatment.

Oh we all do it. I've been seeing Dr's regularly since my diagnosis 6 years ago, and I still come out of appointments and either kick myself for forgetting to ask something, or coming up with questions after pondering over what I've been told. Lol. 

The new department will be Nuclear Medicine. They're the ones who usually deal with the RAI administering, dosage, your care while in isolation, and then the scans and restrictions at the end of your stay. 

The bit that varies is who will give you your scan results back. Sometimes it's nuclear medicine who see you one last time, but more often its your consultant. So nuclear medicine do the scan, interpret the results, then pass them to your consultant to pass to you. So be prepared not to get your WBS results back until that appointment in November.

Lass

Xx