Avoiding Thyroid Cancer Surgery, Depending on the Size with Dr. Miyauchi from Kuma Hospital in Japan

You have been diagnosed with thyroid cancer, and choose no surgery.  Although thyroid cancer diagnosis has spiked around the world, a trend is to pass on surgery if the cancer is identified as low risk.  In doing so, mortality rate does not increase and it avoids unfavorable events sometimes related to surgery, such as vocal chord paralysis, hypothyroidsm, financial costs, and lifelong thyroid hormone treatment. 

In this episode, we visit with Dr. hypothyroidism, a pioneer in prescribing active surveillance in place of immediate surgery.    

Dr. Miyauchi is President and COO of Kuma Hospital, Center for Excellence in Thyroid Care, Kobe, Japan. He is an endocrine surgeon, especially interested in thyroid and parathyroid diseases. He earned his MD and PhD at Osaka University Medical School in 1970 and 1978, respectively. He was Associate Professor of Department of Surgery, Kagawa Medical University until he was appointed to Vice President of Kuma Hospital in 1998. Since 2001, he is at his present position. About 2,000 operations, including about 1,300 thyroid cancer cases, are done every year at Kuma Hospital. He is currently serving as Chairman of the Asian Association of Endocrine Surgeons. He also served as Council of the International Association of Endocrine Surgeons until August 2015.

Topics covered, include:

• Incidence versus mortality
• Worldwide trends related to thyroid cancer
• Papillary Microcarcinoma of the Thyroid (PMCT)
• Unfavorable events following immediate surgery
• Results of research which began in 1993
• The current trend in the incidence of thyroid cancer is expected to create an added cost of $3.5 billion by 2030, to the individual and as a society.

NOTES

Akira Miyauchi, MD, PhD (Kuma Hospital)