Advanced Thyroid Cancer Center

Overview

The Massachusetts General Hospital–Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary Advanced Thyroid Cancer Center provides unique multidisciplinary tertiary care for patients with advanced thyroid malignancy. The center represents a collaborative program of both institutions with the combined resources of the center involving over 15 individual physicians of various important training backgrounds skilled in the management of advanced thyroid cancer working together as a team blending the resources of the two institutions.

Advanced Thyroid Cancer seen within the center includes anaplastic thyroid cancer or cancers that through preliminary outside pathologic evaluation may represent anaplastic carcinoma, undifferentiated thyroid cancer, sarcomatoid/spindle cell thyroid cancer, poorly differentiated cancer, and other high-grade thyroid cancers (including advanced papillary, follicular, Hurthle cell and medullary thyroid cancers) with significant local invasion or distant metastasis.

Our goal is optimizing thyroid cancer treatment focusing on optimizing survival and reducing recurrence and maximally preserving upper aero digestive tract function including voice, swallowing and breathing.

Multidisciplinary Patient Care

Advanced Thyroid Cancer requires a unique multidisciplinary group of physicians expert in the management of thyroid disease and thyroid malignancy. Experienced physician teams from Endocrinology, Endocrine surgery, Oncology, Otolaryngology Head and Neck Surgery as well as Radiation Oncology collaboratively manage patients to optimize patient outcome and to provide access to the latest state-of-the-art clinical and surgical care as well as oncologic clinical trials. Additional resources in thoracic surgery, pathology and speech and swallowing therapy and social work are available. Surgical issues relating to voice and airway are managed with state-of-the-art surgical teams and ongoing follow-up is provided.

Patients are seen in a multidisciplinary clinic and offered urgent appointments within 5 to 7 days of their initial call. Outside records are gathered, financial billing issues are managed and patients are referred to an initial visit and a center visit promptly.