It’s Not Cancer: Doctors Reclassify a Thyroid Tumor

[adreno]

An international panel of doctors has decided that a type of tumor that was classified as a cancer is not a cancer at all.

As a result, they have officially downgraded the condition, and thousands of patients will be spared removal of their thyroid, treatment with radioactive iodine and regular checkups for the rest of their lives, all to protect against a tumor that was never a threat.

Their conclusion, and the data that led to it, was reported Thursday in the journal JAMA Oncology. The change is expected to affect about 10,000 of the nearly 65,000 thyroid cancer patients a year in the United States. It may also offer grist to those who have been arguing for the reclassification of some other forms of cancer, including certain lesions in the breast and prostate.

http://nytimes.com/2016/04/15/health/thyroid-tumor-cancer-reclassification.html

 

[taniaaust1]

this shows just how confusing medicine can be.. one day these patients have the scary "C" word hanging over their heads, the next day they havent though nothing about their condition itself changed.

how many mistakes, things taken for granted are in medicine of today?

 

[chipmunk1]

It's not psychological: Doctors reclassify somatisation disorder.

 

[SilverbladeTE]

Real science has NO certainties, none
Facts and thus hypothesis and then action from that changes as we learn more each day.

Some things are so basic and "solid" that little if anything changes, for example basic mechanical engineering relies on physics and chemistry of what you may call as "rough", prime, basic facts.
For example, building a steam engine.
However, over time we do learn better ways to build steam engines so the ones today are vastly more efficient than those of the 1800s. The physics are the same, some chemistry has changed in that newer alloys etc maybe used
but we learn much better designs of boilers etc.
New eyes looking at things each generation come up with new ideas.