VIDEO: Thyroid cancer studies more focused on health disparities

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I think in the study of thyroid cancer, the exciting thing is that they've been more focused on health disparities. And so this is very important, as the surgical risk, especially, has been shown to be different in certain groups, largely related to who the patient is seeing for their care. And so there's been a lot of studies showing that high-volume surgeons — more recent studies showing even high-volume endocrinology or high-volume facilities — are associated with better patient outcomes. And so it's important, if there are disparities and if patients aren't being seen by these individuals, what can we do to fix that? Is it that they need better access? Is it that we need more training for other physicians who may not have the same volume? You know, how can we address this problem? And so I think it's great that research is focusing on that, and that's a direction that needs to continue to receive support and researchers interested in.

From a practice standpoint, I think one of the most exciting things is minimally invasive interventions. So, there are a lot of thyroid surgeries used for benign nodules. Some benign nodules can be followed, they don't need anything done. But for other benign nodules, we have radiofrequency ablation and percutaneous ethanol ablation that can now be used to shrink these nodules and to avoid some of the risk of surgery. And so this is relatively new in the U.S. It's been used a lot in other countries, but I think it should potentially prevent harm and lead to more tailored care.