http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/857649

Study Confirms Association Between Cancers of Breast, Thyroid

Hi Peacestrength. You should be able to view the article if you enter the title into a search engine.

The researchers have studied both women who got tc first and then bc, and women who got bc first and then tc. There may be a bias: increased surveillance may explain the increased incidence of a second cancer in the women. There was a story in the British papers last year about a financial adviser who 'got cancer' three times within a couple of years: for the first primary (colon), he had a family history and symptoms; the other two primaries (skin and something else, probably prostate, nothing too serious) were found by pure chance and would not have been picked up for years if it had not been for the first one. My doctors consider that you rarely find tc unless you are looking for it and 'you don't die of tc, you die with tc'. So although my thyroid is under surveillance, they're not bothered. The breasts are another matter.

The article does mention that 'the cancers that result tend to be small, nonaggressive, [estrogen-receptor/progesterone-receptor–positive] tumors. ' and that 'There is an overdiagnosis of thyroid cancer in general, and the pendulum is swinging to be less aggressive in its treatment, as reflected in the new American Thyroid Association guidelinespublished last year.' So no need to be paranoid, in fact it's almost good news!

The most important idea for me is that 'receptor signaling might represent common etiological factors in the development of both cancers'. If we could change the terrain...

So the goods news is thyroid cancer can be treated, the bad news is the microscopic cancer cells from the thyroid can spread throughout the body and there can be recurrence even after surgical removal. Interesting the Koreans refer to women as ladies.