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Medullary Thyroid Cancer: Diagnosis and Non Surgical Management

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Practical Management of Thyroid Cancer

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Abstract

Medullary thyroid cancer (MTC) is originating from C cells that represent 0.1% of all thyroid cells. For this reason, it is a rare tumor representing less than 5% of all thyroid tumors. However, MTC prognosis can be poor if the diagnosis arrives too late when the disease already had spread out of the thyroid gland and in particular when distant metastases are present at diagnosis. For this reason, an early diagnosis is desirable although not always possible. Serum calcitonin is of great help since it represents a very sensitive and highly specific tumoral marker. However, if the cure is not obtained with the surgical treatment other therapies must be considered for the treatment of the metastatic lesions and in particular when they start to grow and become clinically dangerous.

In the present chapter, we describe the MTC diagnostic procedures with their skills and pitfalls, the role of the RET genetic screening to distinguish the sporadic from the familial forms and find and treat the gene carriers early and finally the non surgical therapeutic procedures, both the local treatments and the systemic therapies, used when the metastatic lesions start to progress.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Endocrine Unit, Department of Clinical and Experimental Medicine, University Hospital of Pisa, Pisa, Italy

    Rossella Elisei & Antonio Matrone

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  1. Rossella Elisei
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  2. Antonio Matrone
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Correspondence to Rossella Elisei .

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  1. Consultant (Hon), Northern Centre for Cancer Care, Freeman Hospital, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK

    Ujjal K. Mallick

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    Clive Harmer

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Elisei, R., Matrone, A. (2018). Medullary Thyroid Cancer: Diagnosis and Non Surgical Management. In: Mallick, U.K., Harmer, C. (eds) Practical Management of Thyroid Cancer. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-91725-2_19

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