What is Anaplastic Thyroid Carcinoma (ATC)?
Anaplastic thyroid carcinoma is an aggressive form of cancer of the thyroid gland. It is one of the fastest growing tumors in humans. Unlike other forms of thyroid cancer (papillary, follicular, medullary, and their variants) it spreads quickly to other organs. It does not respond to the radioiodine therapy or TSH suppression with thyroxine used for some of the other types of thyroid cancer. Only about 1% of thyroid cancers are of the anaplastic type. ATC occurs most often in people over age 60. It is a very rare disease. About 300 new cases are diagnosed in the USA every year (with a median age of 67). The cause of ATC is unknown. It sometimes arises within a preexisting thyroid cancer that has been less aggressive, such as a papillary thyroid cancer.
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