Over the past several years, the cases of thyroid cancer has significantly increased. Thankfully, this is due to new technology that allows doctors to find small thyroid cancers that they may have missed in the past. In most cases, thyroid cancer is curable with treatment. Typically, this type of cancer presents few symptoms, which makes it difficult to diagnose.

As a person who cares about their health, you must get regular FNA and other tests done when you feel the symptoms are inclining towards thyroid cancer.

1. What exactly is thyroid?
As per the location, it’s at the throat’s end and in front of the neck. It has a natural shape of a butterfly and encloses itself around the windpipe. Our endocrine system is incomplete without the thyroid gland because it helps in the secretion of the hormones required for normal functioning of the body.

2. Thyroid cancer
There are mainly four types of thyroid cancer which cover the majority of the cases that have been recorded up to this date. This cancer originates in the form of a lump or a nodule at the end of your throat or the thyroid gland.

However, sometimes, the detection of these cancerous cells is challenging. Therefore, a microscopic examination is always preferred. Upon a definite diagnosis of the cell in the nodule, surgeries would take effect to remove the nodule or the overall cancerous mass.

The possible symptoms related to the various types of thyroid cancer include:

• Increasing lump around the neck or throat. This lump might not have been present there before.
• Strange pain shooting up from the neck to the eardrums.
• Change in one’s voice, which may seem permanent.
• Sudden trouble with swallowing and breathing. This might not have been diagnosed earlier.
• Regular cough without the change of weather or catching a cold.

3. Testing for thyroid cancer
Eligible tests for various types of thyroid cancer:

• Ultrasound
  This test does not harm your body with any kind of radiation. Sound waves simply help in creating the virtual image of the tumor, if any. After this test, it can be diagnosed whether the nodule is fluid or solid in nature. However, you must know that the solid ones are fatal and cancerous.
• Chest X-ray
  This is done majorly for follicular cancer to test whether the tumor has spread wider and has reached the lungs yet.
• MRI scans
  Under this scan, magnets are widely used to form a computerized image of the tumor or the nodule. Other than that, it transforms your body’s image to check whether the nodule is present anywhere else in the body.
• FNA or Fine Needle Aspiration biopsy
  For this test, cells are drawn from the suspected region around the neck or the lung. Afterward, it is tested in the lab to figure if the cell has the cancerous nodule.