Dr.Lupo,
Thank you for your response. Just in case you check back on here, what do you know about the Hurthle cells, and do I have reasons to be concerned?
And what are the chances my FNA is correct? And what about age over 40 and especially 45 for prognoses if it's cancer?
Sounds like you have had a good evaluation by an excellent endocrinologist and cytopathologist (I know Zubair). At this point, would recommend repeat ultrasound in 6 months, then annually to make certain the size/appearance is stable. Combining 2 adjacent small nodules in one specimen is not unusual as if there is anything atypical, the whole side comes out surgically.
Thank you for your response. I was really hoping to hear from Dr.Mark Lupo and his reply.
In some ways I'm more petrified of thyroid (or *any* surgery* ) than the possibility of thyroid cancer! So I'm in a no win situation!
If you are really worried about it ask them to do a TT. I am going to have a TT in the next couple of months because the doctors say that until the nodules are in the pan and dissected you can't know for sure. My mother just died of breast cancer so any way to cure it or reduce the risk of getting it later is worth it!
Also I had spoken in May with university of Maryland radiologist Dr.Jade Wong-You-Cheong and when I told her that my endo at Unniversity of Penn hospital kept insisting that a taller than wide shape of thyroid nodules as suspicious, is outdated she said she thinks it still holds true. And she mentioned that there was a recent study about it in the online journal Radiology.
I asked her was it from Korea because I found a recent study about this too on an online radiology journal and she yes and she said it was by a Dr.Moon. So after I spoke with her I looked it up again on google and sure enough it was the same exact study I had found and was by a Dr.Moon!
My thyroid nodules were found by accident In the Fall of 2006 when I was 41 and a half, because I have a very slow metabolism and my thyroid blood tests have always been normal and I gained weight for the first time at age 34 and had to go on a diet for the first time in my life. So I asked my internist for a prescription for a thyroid ultrasound.
I have normal TSH and all other thyroid blood tests. I wondered why 1 of my 2 small nodules was written as 1 nodule on my FNA results paper and Dr.Jennings told me he put both samples from both nodules into the same container because it costs less this way.
I'm not happy he did it this way and I have never heard of it done like this but I'm not an endo and don't know everything endos do.How can they tell how many cells are in both nodules if they were combined?
So I was wondering what you know and think about this. I asked Dr.Jennings if it would taint each nodule's results by doing this and he said it doesn't and he's done it this way before and he said he thinks even Dr.Susan Mandel the top thyroid cancer specialist at the Unniversity of Penn Hospital has done it this way. He knows her well and he's heard her speak. Dr.Jennings also biopsied my largest 1 cm predominately solid nodule twice that day because first fluid came out.
Dr.Baloch didn't know my endo combined my nodule's samples into 1 container .He called me and he said when I told him my concerns about the Hurthle cells ,he said I don't have a lot of them ( my endo said only when there is sheets of them can they be cancer) ,and that he could have Hurthle cells ,children could have Hurthle cells in their thyroids and that it's not abnormal only when there is a large amount. But because my nodules are so small, isn't possible that the needle missed more of the Hurthle cells( and other cancer cells!) present?
Also how accuarate are thyroid FNA's especially when my other 2 nodules are pretty small? My endo used ultrasound guided FNA though. Also I had asked Dr.Jennings when he looked at my ultrasound report if any of my nodules are taller than wide because the other endo at University of Penn Hospital Dr.Kolin Hoff kept insisting this feature as suspicious for thyroid cancer is outdated, and Dr.Jennings pointed to 1 of my nodules on his computer screen and said this one is slightly taller than wide, so does this count as suspicious then?
And none of my 3 nodules has a halo around them, and one of my small nodules is on my isthmus and is hypoechoic and my largest nodule is predominately solid and isoechoic the other two are mixed but more cystic than solid.
I have the excellent report by the AACE, Task Force On Thyroid Nodules and they mention that nodules that are taller than wider, hypoechoic and have an absent halo are ultrasound features that are commonly found with thyroid cancer and I have these features and this still concerns me. My former endo at The University of Pennsylvania Hospital sent me a letter before I got the FNA telling me my nodules were read as officially non-suspicious.
Two radiologists from the university of Maryland, Dr. Fauzia Vandermeer, and Jade Wong-You-Cheong wrote in an excellent article called,Thyroid Nodules:When To Biopsy? in Applied Radiology Journal online March 2007 ,that although with 80% of thyroid cancers the halo is absent , it may also be absent in more than 50% of benign nodules.
So I was wondering since I have some of these ultrasound features can a benign biopsy result of all 3 of my really small nodules, be truly accurate anyway? There are quite a few people on here as well as other health board who had false benign FNA's.
I don't have any calification and not much blood flow. And I know that as The American Cancer Society writes in their report on thyroid cancer, most benign and cancerous nodules look the same on ultrasound and they said thats why you can't tell by ultrasound alone if they are benign or cancer. And I also know that the benign and cancerous nodules can have features of each other.
My father who is 75 recently found out he has four small thyroid nodules some on each lobe and he had X-Ray therapy to treat acne as a teenager. He had a biopsy on just one of his small nodules in January and it came back a benign colloid nodule. One of my father's sister's daughter's at age 41 nine years ago had a thyroid nodule found by accident on an MRI she had because of head aches she was getting from a diet pill she was taking to lose weight after her second daughter was born. She had no thyroid conditions and her nodule was cold on a scan, she had an inconclusive biopsy and then half her thyroid removed and it was benign!
I know that benign thyroid nodules can run in families but so can papillary thyroid cancer sometimes, so if my father's biopsy of his nodule is inaccurate or if it was accurate but his other nodules he didn't have biopsied are cancer, wouldn't it increase my chances and likelihood of having it too? And is it true that starting at age 45 thyroid cancer isn't as treatable? I'm concerned since most thyroid cancers grow so slowly that I'll be older than 45 by the time I'm diagnosed.
I have spoken with 5 thyroid cancer survivors, and had emails back from about 5 and I communicated with survivors on thyroid health boards like this one and many of them were older than me when they were diagnosed and are OK now but everyone is different and thats what worries me. I didn't want to wait until I was 45 or 50 to have a biopsy and my nodules if they are cancer could stay this same size for the next 5 or 8 years and then I would be stage 2 !