Further Research Needed to Evaluate Peds vs Adults With Thyroid Cancer

Aime T. Franco, PhD, assistant professor and investigator with the Center for Childhood Cancer Research at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, provides an overview of her discussion regarding the molecular landscape of pediatric patients with thyroid cancer at the 91st Annual Meeting of the American Thyroid Association.

According to Franco, the thyroid cancer space tends to be underrepresented in the research spectrum due to low mortality rates associated with the disease and available treatment options.

However, there is always more to be learned, especially in examining the differences between pediatric and adult patients with thyroid cancer.

Transcription:

0:08 | I plan to discuss some of the new findings we have looking at the genetic and molecular landscape of pediatric thyroid cancers, and how this has improved our understanding and lended insight into how pediatric tumors are similar, but also very dissimilar to adult tumors, how we can personalize and specialize our approach to our pediatric patients compared to our adult patients. But also, to get us to start thinking about the fact that pediatric patients become adult patients, and how is that going to change over their lifespan?

0:46 | We don't have all those answers yet, but I think this is something we need to start thinking about in the clinical spectrum. Not only the immediate diagnosis, but what are the long term repercussions and how do we start to think about pediatric thyroid cancer as a lifespan disease and not just something that happens only during childhood.