Thyroid Cancer

A few different types of cancer start in the thyroid – a gland just above your collarbones in your neck which produces hormones.

The most common type is called papillary carcinoma, which tends to affect younger people, especially women.

Treatment for thyroid cancer has a high success rate. But it’s still really important to get checked out if you have any symptoms you’re worried about.

Some thyroid cancer symptoms can be:

• a sore throat or hoarse voice that lasts for several weeks, or if swallowing is painful for that amount of time
• if you feel a lump in your neck (and especially in the base of your neck)

If you’ve had radiotherapy to your neck, you’re at a higher risk of getting thyroid cancer. So your radiotherapy doctor will feel your thyroid gland regularly and arrange blood tests and/or ultrasound scans to check everything is OK.

It’s always best to check if you have any of these symptoms, or you notice anything unusual. Remember that thyroid lumps can happen, but most aren’t cancerous. And some of these other symptoms can have other causes too.

Your GP or radiotherapy doctor will take a look at your neck and you’ll have a blood test to see if levels of particular hormones suggest a thyroid problem.

You might then have an ultrasound scan to give doctors a closer look at the lump, if you have one.

And cells might be taken from your thyroid using a needle or in surgery (this is called a biopsy), so they can be examined under a microscope for signs of cancer.