Dr. Stephen Huang on Challenges in Pediatric Thyroid Cancer

Stephen Huang, MD, Associate Professor of Pediatrics, Harvard Medical School, Dana Farber Cancer Institute, discusses the challenges of pediatric thyroid cancer.

Many of the tools have been known to benefit adult patients with thyroid cancer, are now being shown to be very helpful in the pediatric thyroid cancer population as well, says Huang. However, many challenges remain in the treatment of pediatric patients.

Pediatric patients have higher rates of local and distant metastasis, although outcomes are still positive for most children. The long-term implications and survival of pediatric thyroid cancer is also still not fully understood, says Huang. This is because few studies have followed childhood patients into adulthood. More collaboration needs to occur between pediatric and adult thyroid cancer specialists, he says.

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