Is it okay not to remove the thyroid cancer?

Thyroid cancer must be treated without resection. For patients with thyroid cancer, a comprehensive decision on whether resection is needed is usually made based on factors such as the early or late pathological stage, the size of the lesion, the presence of lymph node metastasis, distant metastasis, and the patient's age and physical condition.

1. Early or late pathological staging: For patients with early thyroid cancer, since the tumor is relatively small and there is no lymph node metastasis or distant metastasis, surgical resection can achieve a cure, and the thyroid gland does not need to be removed. For patients with mid- to late-stage thyroid cancer, since the tumor is relatively large or lymph node metastasis has occurred, even surgical resection is difficult to achieve a cure, and the thyroid gland needs to be removed;

2. Lesion size: If the thyroid cancer lesion is relatively large, it will be difficult to completely remove it during surgery even if there is no lymph node metastasis, so it is not advisable not to remove it;

3. Whether there is lymph node metastasis: If there is no lymph node metastasis in thyroid cancer, even if the local lymph nodes are removed during surgery, it will not cause tumor recurrence. In this case, it is not advisable not to remove the lymph nodes.

4. Distant metastasis: If thyroid cancer has already metastasized to distant sites, such as lung metastasis, liver metastasis, bone metastasis, etc., surgery must remove all primary lesions and metastatic lesions to achieve a cure, so it is not advisable not to remove them at this time;

5. Patient's age: If the patient is older, such as over 80-90 years old, and his/her physical condition is poor and he/she cannot tolerate surgical treatment, even if the thyroid cancer is not removed, it cannot be cured. It is recommended to first undergo conservative treatment such as radiotherapy and chemotherapy, and then perform surgical removal after the condition stabilizes;

6. Physical condition: If the patient's cardiopulmonary function is poor, he or she has many underlying diseases and cannot tolerate surgical treatment, then even thyroid cancer cannot be cured if it is not removed.