ABSTRACT
ABSTRACT: The incidence of differentiated thyroid cancer is rapidly increasing in the Western world. While the majority of patients with this disease will experience normal life span and quality, a few will die from more severe forms of the disease. Traditional demographic and pathological variables provide reasonable risk stratiˆcation after primary treatment. However, due to the imperfection of these tools, many patients still receive unnecessary aggressive adjuvant therapy, while the early identiˆcation of patients at risk for relapses and death remains unsatisfactory. Recent developments in the understanding of mutations underlying tumoral behavior offer new promise in the development of risk stratiˆcation tools. In addition, the availability of sensitive tumor markers for disease persistence or relapse and of newer imaging techniques provides new methods for risk stratiˆcation during patient follow-up.
