Papillary thyroid cancer is the most common form of the disease, making up about 80 percent of all thyroid cancer cases. It is usually not an aggressive or fast-moving form of cancer, with 10-year survival rates of 80 to 90 percent.
Here are some things you need to know about the stages of papillary thyroid cancer.
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1. Most papillary thyroid cancers are diagnosed in people between 30 and 50 years old.
2. Radiation exposure is responsible for the majority of
papillary thyroid cancer cases, according to Endocrine Web.
3. It can take up to 20 years after radiation exposure occurs for cancer symptoms to appear,
according to the Thyroid Cancer Survivor’s Association.
4. Women are about three times more likely than men to get papillary thyroid cancer.
5. Staging for those younger than 45 is different from staging for older patients because they have a very low occurrence of dying from the cancer,
according to the National Cancer Society. In Stage I, the cancer has not spread to other parts of the body, while in Stage II, it has spread beyond the thyroid and lymph nodes.
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6. For patients older than 45, there are four main stages of disease.
7. In Stage I, the tumor is 2 centimeters or less in size and has not grown outside the thyroid or spread to any other parts of the body, including lymph nodes.
8. In Stage II, the tumor is 2 to 4 centimeters but is contained in the thyroid and has not spread to other parts of the body or lymph nodes.
9. In Stage III, the tumor is any size, may have grown outside the thyroid and may have spread to the lymph nodes around the thyroid, but not to other body parts.
10. Stage IV is divided into three separate subcategories, which are differentiated by how far into surrounding tissues, lymph nodes, and other parts of the body cancer has grown. Stage IV is the most aggressive form of papillary thyroid cancer, but still has over a 50 percent 10-year survival rate,
according to the American Cancer Society.
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