ABSTRACT
The prognosis of differentiated thyroid cancer is excellent for most patients. Once thyroid cancer is diagnosed, ideally the extent of the disease should be further staged to assess tumour size, invasion of important central structures such as trachea and oesophagus, and the presence of nodal metastases and/or distant metastases. The patients with more aggressive thyroid cancer tend to have non-iodine avid disease or iodine-refractory disease in which case a delay in receiving radioiodine ablation is significant only in that it can increase time to other adjuvant modalities such as external beam radiotherapy. Thyroidectomy is the mainstay of treatment for thyroid cancers. Patients with follicular thyroid cancer associated with any of the above poor prognostic features should be advised to undergo a total thyroidectomy. Papillary thyroid microcarcinoma is defined as a tumour no greater than 1 cm in maximum diameter.
