Breasts and thyroid cancer?

Hi Wildflower Dew 

I’m Anne, one of the Community Champions here on the Online Community and, although I'm not a member of this group, I noticed that your post hadn't had any replies yet. Responding to you will 'bump' it back to the top of the discussion list again.

It sounds like you've been through an incredibly hard time and I hope you don't have to wait too long for your results from your recent visit to the breast clinic.

While you're waiting for replies, it would be great if you could put something about your diagnosis and treatment into your profile as it really helps others when replying to you and also when looking for someone on a similar pathway. It also means that you don't have to keep repeating yourself. To do this click on your username and then select 'Profile'. You can amend it at any time and if you're not sure what to write you can take a look at mine by clicking on my username.

I don't think bumping will make a lot of difference as I suspect nobody has any answers for the poster.

In my 15 years since TC, I don't recall anybody ever saying they had a spread of TC to the breast tissue.  Lungs, bones, even liver are not too unusual, but breast isn't something I have come across.

It could be this lump is unconnected to the earlier TC, but of course it still needs proper investigation. 

As a tiny extra comment, if it WAS a metastasis from the thyroid, it may well be that if the cancer is differentiated, it can be zapped with radioactive iodine and might be less 'troublesome' than a more conventional breast lump.

I realise that's possibly a 'bright side' that you weren't looking for.

(I have known people have breast cancer and THEN get thyroid afterwards but not the other way around). 

Thank you for your reply.

It’s a blessing that you have never encountered breast metastatic disease from thyroid cancer. I hope it remains that way and also whatever it is in my case is easily treated as it has not gone away and is getting increasingly uncomfortable.

I would say there are many kinds of thyroid cancer and some are easily misidentified e.g medullary or diffuse sclerosing forms which do spread, and spread to the breast. Indeed some early documented thyroid cancers show extreme soft tissue involvement from head to toe.

Since thyroid cancer is apparently on the increase it’s an important area in general. Also noting the fact that some are more prone to unusual cancers than others due to genetics or because of radiation exposure.