Management of thyroid cancer.

Thyroid cancers are a diverse group of malignant disorders ranging from indolent micropapillary carcinoma, which has no effect on life expectancy, to anaplastic tumours, which are invariably fatal even with aggressive treatment. Although the estimated incidence has increased by 14.6% over the past 40 years, the estimated death rate has fallen by 21%, probably as a result of earlier diagnosis. The natural history of thyroid tumours is no longer a mystery, and the prognostic factors identified can predict outcome fairly accurately. Improvements in management have mostly depended on information from large retrospective series, though there are still many areas open to debate. There has been, however, a general acceptance that thyroid cancer should be managed by multidisciplinary teams in specialised units following evidence-based guidelines.