Symptoms of thyroid cancer

The number of people suffering from thyroid disease is constantly increasing all over the world, including Armenia. Over the past few years, there has been an increase in the number of patients diagnosed with thyroid cancer. During his conversation with Tert.am, Slavmed Medical Center’s endocrinologist Vahe Avagyan described the main types of thyroid disease in detail, its symptoms, and when one should see a doctor? According to the endocrinologist, this gland which associates for many with a butterfly, is a significant organ playing an important role for human body, as well as the main hormone-releasing organ, which regulates human body weight, ability to work, controls our mood and well-being, however people often ignore the importance of this gland and link the signs of the disease to other various circumstances, including an inherited predisposition. This is the main reason that an important period for treatment gets missed. One should not forget that the thyroid gland is responsible for the production of hormones and regulates all metabolic processes. This gland produces hormones that are crucial to our metabolism, and any disruption of its activity is extremely dangerous for our quality of life. The thyroid gland produces thyroxine hormones, both excess and deficiency of which have different symptoms. Proper function of the thyroid gland is directly related to humans well-being. This is the reason why any disturbance of its activity may lead to hormonal imbalance and appearance of various diseases. Thyroid problems are most common among women. Slavmed Medical Center’s endocrinologist Vahe Avagyan notes that the common diseases of the thyroid gland are hypothyroidism, during which the thyroid does not produce enough hormones and hormonal imbalance occurs in human body, and hyperthyroidism, which is the opposite state, when there is an excess of hormone production. “Accurate tactics of the disease treatment are no doubt core of the research”, noted Vahe Avagyan. This once again speaks about the importance of accurate research and the need for technologically equipped centers, as today thanks to modern diagnostics methods introduced at Slavmed Medical Center and best equipment used in laboratory diagnosis, we have an ability to perform a biopsy on nodes as small as 1cm, with a thin needle, and are able to see not only the gland structure and presence of the joints, but also to detect any changes in each thyroid gland, thus avoiding an undesirable outcome.

I would like to urge our citizens, especially women, to undergo a preventive medical examination once a year, as the sooner  the problem is detected, the easier the treatment will be, “said Vahe Avagyan. He also reminded that usually hormonal diseases are accompanied by specific complaints and symptoms, which urges patients to visit a doctor, whereas during the period of development of thyroid nodes there are barely any symptoms, and the disease is detected accidentally when deformities occur in the neck area or the patient goes through a prophylactic examination. “These include duplex and ultrasound examination of the neck vessels, and in majority of cases the detected nodes require surgical treatment”, emphasized Vahe Avagyan.