Diagnosis
I had a very difficult time waiting for the path reports. There was an issue of whether or not I had two independent thyroid (TG) cancers of different types. This was clinically significant from a prognosis standpoint, but does not change the treatment (Rx). There was also one node next to the TG which had cancer cells. This was a local lymph node (LN). I will not know if this has metastasized to other locations until the first scanning begins. The histology slides were sent from the hospital where I had the surgery to a research hospital . The report came back showing the primary tumor as Papillary TG carcinoma (PTC). The second tumor was finally determined to be benign. PTC has an excellent prognosis under the following criteria: less than 45, female, tumor confined to the TG. Unfortunately, I am 52, male, and have one LN involved. So things are muddy for me. My tumor is now stage III because even though it was small (<1.2 cm), there is one LN involved which increases the stage. My endo told me not to get to hung up on staging as PTC rarely metastasizes outside the neck. Comforting, but not much. I would be curious to find out what experience others here have at my particular place in this process. Thanks