What is different about medullary thyroid cancer?
Except for medullary thyroid cancer, the other common types of other thyroid cancers arise from a thyroid follicular cell (the normal thyroid cell that concentrates iodine and produces/stores/releases thyroid hormone). Medullary thyroid cancer arises from a different cell type within the thyroid gland (c-cells). These c-cells are neuroendocrine cells that are very different from thyroid follicular cells in that they do not concentrate iodine and they do not make thyroid hormones. Unlike the other thyroid cancers, medullary thyroid cancer may be part of a hereditary syndrome in which each first degree relative of an affected patient has a 50% chance of developing medullary thyroid cancer. The genetic mutation for hereditary thyroid cancer is now well know and its detection is possible with a commercially available blood test (RET proto-oncogene). Of all the patients with medullary thyroid cancer, only 25% have a genetic syndrome that can be passed through a family. The other 75% have sp
