Thyroid cancer remains the most common endocrine malignancy and comprises 2% of all cancers in the United States. Papillary and follicular types are considered differentiated carcinomas and have an excellent treatment response with survival rates of up to 93% in the first ten years. Conversely, poorly differentiated carcinomas like medullary and anaplastic subtypes demonstrate aggressive behavior with survival rates ranging between 10% to 60%.
Within the array of diagnostic tools available for detecting thyroid cancer, the use of ultrasound and fine-needle aspiration is the first step and gold standard modalities, especially in high-risk patients (palpable neck mass, family history of malignancy, etc.). However, additional imaging modalities such as PET/CT are often utilized as a troubleshooting diagnostic tool, particularly in metastatic disease with unknown primary and extension of disease in poorly differentiated subtypes.
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