Our team of specialists and staff believe that informed patients are better equipped to make decisions regarding their health and well being. For your personal use, we have created an extensive patient library covering an array of educational topics. Browse through these diagnoses and treatments to learn more about topics of interest to you. Or, for a more comprehensive search of our entire Web site, enter your term(s) in the search bar provided.
As always, you can contact our office to answer any questions or concerns.
Our Library at a quick glance:
Ears
- Children and Facial Paralysis
- Child's Hearing Loss
- Cholesteatoma
- Cochlear Implants
- Dizziness and Motion Sickness
- Fall Prevention
- Ear Plastic Surgery
- Ear Tubes
- Earaches
- Ears and Altitude
- Earwax
- Quick Glossary for Good Ear Health
- Autoimmune Inner Ear Disease
- Better Ear Health
- Buying a Hearing Aid
- Child Screening
- Chronic Otitis Media
- Cochlear-Meningitis Vaccination
- Day Care and Ear, Nose, and Throat Problems
- Ear Infection and Vaccines
- Your Genes and Hearing Loss
- How the Ear Works
- Hyperacusis
- Know the Power of Sound
- Noise-Induced Hearing Loss In Children
- Pediatric Obesity
- What You Should Know About Otosclerosis
- When Your Child Has Tinnitus
- Why Do Children Have Earaches?
- Infant Hearing Loss
- Noise and Hearing Protection
- Perforated Eardrum
- Swimmer's Ear
- Tinnitus (also, heres a link to a very good tinnitus organization ATA)
- TMJ
Throat
- About Your Voice
- Common Problems That Can Affect Your Voice
- Day Care and Ear, Nose, and Throat
- Effects of Medications on Voice
- Gastroesphageal Reflux (GERD)
- How Allergies Affect your Child's Ears, Nose, and Throat
- Laryngeal (Voice Box) Cancer
- Laryngopharyngeal Reflux and Children
- Nodules, Polyps, and Cysts
- Pediatric GERD
- Pediatric Obesity and Ear, Nose, and Throat Disorders
- Special Care for Occupational and Professional Voice Users
- Tips for Healthy Voices
- Tonsils and Adenoids
- Tonsillectomy Procedures
- Tonsillitis
- Tonsils and Adenoids PostOp
- Vocal Cord Paralysis
- GERD and LPR
- Hoarseness
- How the Voice Works
- Secondhand Smoke
- Sore Throats
- Swallowing Disorders
Nose and Mouth
- Allergies and Hay Fever
- Antihistamines, Decongestants, and "Cold" Remedies
- Continuous Positive Airway Pressure (CPAP)
- Facial Sports Injuries
- 20 Questions about Your Sinuses
- Allergic Rhinitis (Hay Fever)
- Allergic Rhinitis, Sinusitis, and Rhinosinusitis
- Antibiotics and Sinusitis
- Are We Through With Chew Yet?
- Could My Child Have Sleep Apnea?
- Day Care and Ear, Nose, and Throat Problems
- Deviated Septum
- Do I Have Sinusitis?
- How Allergies Affect your Child's Ears, Nose, and Throat
- Pediatric Obesity
- Sinus Headaches
- Sinus Pain
- Sinus Surgery
- Sinusitis: Special Considerations for Aging Patients
- Tips for Sinus Sufferers
- Tongue-tie (Ankyloglossia)
- Your Nose: The Guardian Of Your Lungs
- Fungal Sinusitis
- Mouth Sores
- Nasal Fractures
- Nose Surgery
- Nosebleeds
- Post-Nasal Drip
- Salivary Glands
- Secondhand Smoke
- Sinusitis
- Smell and Taste
- Smokeless Tobacco
- Snoring
- Stuffy Noses
- TMJ Pain
Head and Neck
- Facial Plastic Surgery
- Facial Sports Injuries
- Children and Facial Trauma
- Pediatric Head and Neck Tumors
- Head and Neck Cancer
- Thyroid Nodules
- Laryngeal (Voice Box) Cancer
- Pediatric Thyroid Cancer
- Rhabdomyosarcoma
- Smokeless Tobacco
- Are We Through With Chew Yet?
- Quiting Smokeless Tobacco
- Secondhand Smoke
- Skin Cancer
Pediatric
- Child Screening
- Children and Facial Trauma
- Could My Child Have Sleep Apnea?
- Day Care and Ear, Nose, and Throat
- How Allergies Affect your Child's Ears, Nose, and Throat
- Pediatric Food Allergies
- Pediatric Obesity and Ear, Nose, and Throat Disorders
- Pediatric Sinusitis
- Secondhand Smoke and Children
- Tonsillitis
- Tonsillectomy Procedures
- Tonsils and Adenoids PostOp
- Ear Tubes
Espanol
- Colesteatoma
- Diábolos Estudio acerca de causas y opciones terapéuticas
- Doctor? ¿Por Qué a Mi Hijo Le Duele El OÃdo?
- Doctor? ¿Qué Causa El Ruido En El OÃdo?
- El Humo del Tabaco Ambiental y los Niños
- La pérdida de la audición
- Otitis Media Crónica (Infección del OÃdo Medio) e Hipocusia
- Perfóracion Timpánica
- Qué Debe Saber Acerca de la Otoesclerosis
- Screening de Audición en Niños
- Sirvan Las Amigdalas Y Los Adenoides?
The thyroid is a butterfly shaped gland located at the base of the throat. It has two lobes separated in the middle by a strip of tissue (the isthmus). The thyroid itself secretes three main hormones: (1) Thyroxine contains iodine, needed for growth and metabolism; (2) Triiodothyronine, similar in function to Thyroxine, effects body size, tissues growth, and function: and (3) Calcitonin, which decreases the concentration of calcium in the blood and increases calcium in the bones. All three of these hormones have an important role in your child's growth.
Thyroid cancer is the third most common tumor malignancy in children. It occurs six times more often in females than males and shares several characteristics with adult thyroid cancer patients. Surgery is the preferred treatment for this cancer and although the procedure is often uncomplicated, one of the risks of thyroid surgery involves vocal cord paralysis. Consequently, an otolaryngologist-head and neck surgeon should be consulted.
Types of thyroid cancer in children:
Papillary: This form of thyroid cancer occurs in cells that produce thyroid hormones containing iodine. This type, the most common form of thyroid cancer in children, grows very slowly.
Follicular: This type of thyroid cancer also develops in cells that produce thyroid hormones containing iodine. The disease afflicts a slightly older age group and is less common in children. This type of thyroid cancer is more likely to spread to the neck via blood vessels causing the cancer to spread to other parts of the body, making the disease difficult to control.
Medullary: This rare form of thyroid cancer develops in cells that produce calcitonin, a hormone that does not contain iodine. This cancer tends to spread to other parts of the body and constitutes about 5-10 percent of all thyroid malignancies. Medullary thyroid carcinoma (MTC) in the pediatric population is usually associated with multiple endocrine neoplasia type 2 (MEN2), an inherited genetic form of the cancer.
Anaplastic: This is the fastest growing of the thyroid cancers, with extremely abnormal cells that grow and spread rapidly, especially locally in the head and neck region. This form of cancer usually is found in older patients.
Symptoms:
The symptoms of this disease vary. Your child may have a lump in the neck, continuous swollen lymph nodes, a tight or full feeling in the neck, and/or trouble with breathing or swallowing, hoarseness.
Diagnosis:
If any of these symptoms occur, consult your child's physician for a diagnosis. The diagnosis could consist of a head and neck examination to determine if unusual lumps are present; a blood test to indicate how the thyroid is functioning; a sonography, which uses high-frequency sound waves and a computer to create an image of the thyroid gland; a radioactive iodine scan, which provides information about the thyroid shape and function, identifying areas in the thyroid that do no absorb iodine in the normal way; fine needle biopsy, removal for study of a small part of the tumor; and surgery, where a procedure known as a thyroid lobectomy, necessitates removal of the lobe of the thyroid gland that contains the tumor, for analysis.
Treatments for thyroid cancer:
If the tumor is found to be malignant then surgery is used to remove as much of the tumor as possible either by lobectomy or subtotal thyroidectomy (removal of at least one thyroid lobe and up to a near-total removal of the thyroid gland). If necessary, the otolaryngologist- head and neck surgeon may remove the entire thyroid, in a procedure called a total thyroidectomy. Surgery may be followed by radioactive iodine therapy which destroys cancer cells that are left after surgery and help prevent the disease from returning Thyroid hormone therapy may need to be administered throughout your child's life when he/she has had surgery to remove the thyroid followed by radioactive iodine treatment to replace normal hormones and slow the growth of cancer cells. If cancer has spread to other parts of the body, chemotherapy, the treatment of disease by means of chemical substances or drugs, may be given. This therapy interferes with the cancer cell's ability to grow or reproduce. Different groups of drugs work in different ways to fight cancer cells and shrink tumors. In general, treatment outcomes for this type of cancer in children tend to be excellent. The best outcome is achieved with teenage girls, papillary type cancer, and a tumor localized to the thyroid gland.
Source: National Cancer Institute "Populationbased Outcomes for Pediatric Thyroid Carcinoma," by Nina L. Shapiro MD, and Neil Bhattacharyya MD, Laryngoscope. 2005 Feb;115(2):337-40.
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