Overdiagnosis and Thyroid cancer incidence
If you read about thyroid cancer, everyone agrees that its incidence is on the rise. In recent months, there has been lots of press coverage as how this increased thyroid incidence is due to overdiagnosis. To illustrate the overdiagnosis with an example, we need to take a look at South Korea. There was a huge increase in the incidence of thyroid cancer in South Korea which was blamed on overdiagnosis . But a recent review article on this topic cautions; not so fast . Thyroid cancers form about 2.1% of total cancer diagnoses worldwide, with women disproportionately affected, accounting for about 77% of the cases. The phenomenon of more women patients than men is unique to thyroid pathology and is also seen in Hashimoto's thyroiditis and Graves' disease. Majority of thyroid cancers are termed differentiated with two main subtypes, papillary thyroid cancers (PTC) and follicular thyroid cancers (FTC). The increased incidence of the thyroid cancer is mainly attributed to increas...