Impact of diagnostic changes on the rise in thyroid cancer incidence

A new study, led by researchers from the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) and published in Thyroid, shows that the majority of thyroid cancers in developed countries are very likely to be due to increased surveillance and diagnostic changes, like the introduction of neck ultrasonography in the 1980s and of computed tomography (CT) scanning and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in the 1990s. The possibility of overdiagnosis and overtreatment of thyroid cancer should be urgently addressed since no benefits in terms of prevention of cancer deaths have been demonstrated and enhanced surveillance of the thyroid gland is associated with substantial side-effects and sizeable financial costs.

The impact of diagnostic changes on the rise in thyroid cancer incidence: a population-based study in selected high-resource countries
Vaccarella S, Dal Maso L, Laversanne M, Bray F, Plummer M, and Franceschi S
Thyroid, Published online ahead of print, http://dx.doi.org/10.1089/thy.2015.0116
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