Thursday, September 1, 2011

Medullary Thyroid Cancer

Yesterday in morning report we had a really interesting case of medullary thyroid cancer presenting with chronic diarrhea and complicated by heart failure, likely secondary to amyloidosis.

A little more about medullary thyroid cancer (MTC):

- MTC can be either sporadic or inherited. Inherited forms involve mutations to the RET proto-oncogene and can be either be alone or as part of one of the Multiple Endocrine Neoplasia syndromes- MEN 2A or MEN 2B.

- MEN 2A is characterized by MTC with hyperparathyroidism and/or pheochromocytoma

- MEN 2B is characterized by MTC with typical phenotyic features such as marfanoid body habitus or mucosal neuromas with or without pheochromocytoma.

- Most patients present with a thyroid mass, but some present with symptoms of local spread such as dysphagia, dyspnea, or hoarseness. Roughly 10% will present with systemic symptoms related to the production of neuroendocrine mediators such as calcitonin, resulting in bone pain, flushing, and/or diarrhea.

- Those that present with systemic symptoms usually have metastatic disease.

- More in a review from Cancer here

We also found out through our group searching excercise that MTC is associated with secondary amyloidosis casued by calcitonin.

-A good related article sent out by Dr. Abrams here.

- More on amyloidosis from a prior post here.

1 comment:

  1. Bovine thyroid supplements gave no side effects. I started TSH 4.5 and after 1 month on 60 mgs bovine went down to 1.6. I felt really good.

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