Thyroid cancer is less common than many other varieties of cancer, such as breast, colon or prostate cancer. Over the last several years, more people have been diagnosed with thyroid cancer, possibly due to increased screening. If found early, most thyroid tumors can be treated successfully.
How Do Doctors Look for Thyroid Cancer?
If you have symptoms such as persistent hoarseness, trouble swallowing, or a lump or bump on your thyroid, the doctor will order an imaging test. Radioiodine scans, CT scans, MRI or ultrasound might be used to detect a potential tumor. To confirm that it is cancer, however, clinicians most frequently utilize fine-needle biopsy. This approach only identifies a small proportion of thyroid cancers, however.
Singing for a Thyroid Test:
Now, researchers in France have developed a novel technique (Applied Physics Letters, Jan. 12, 2021). The scientists have figured out how to use ultrasound imaging while the patient sings. Tumors react differently from normal thyroid tissue to vibrations from the vocal cords. According to the investigators, a person singing EEE at 150 hertz for one second provides adequate data for computerized analysis and diagnosis.
Call in the Dogs:
Dogs have an extraordinary sense of smell. (For a fascinating book about their olfactory abilities and how they can use their sense of smell to locate dead bodies, check out What the Dog Knows.) Now scientists are finding ways to put this ability to discriminate between aromas to work detecting cancer.
Previous research has suggested that dogs may be able to detect many different types of cancer. Promising trials have been done in the detection of bladder cancer, melanoma, ovarian tumors, and cancers of the lung, breast or prostate.
Smelling Thyroid Cancer Signals in Urine Samples:
Investigators at the University of Arkansas trained Frankie the rescue dog to identify urine samples of people with thyroid cancer. Frankie, a German shepherd mix who was originally found as a stray puppy on a Little Rock street, was trained to turn his head away from a sample that came from a patient with benign thyroid disease. He learned to lie down when presented a sample from a person with thyroid cancer.
In a test, Frankie correctly identified 30 out of 34 samples, an 88 percent accuracy rate. The researchers suggest that using a trained dog like Frankie could help them rule out cancer when a person has benign thyroid nodules, which could hide an actual tumor. Canine olfactory discrimination could also be helpful in detecting a recurrence in people who have been treated for thyroid cancer.
