Home Diseases and Conditions Thyroid Cancer

Thyroid Cancer

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Development Stage

Early Stage

Focused ultrasound research is in the laboratory phase and is not yet available for patients.

Clinical Trials

Focused ultrasound for this condition is being researched in clinical trials.

International Approval

Focused ultrasound is approved to treat this condition outside the US. Patients can seek commercial treatment at participating international sites.

FDA Approved

The US Food and Drug Administration has approved focus ultrasound for this condition. Patients can seek commercial treatment at participating sites.

Early Stage

Clinical Trials

International

FDA Approved

Focused ultrasound for this condition has been researched in clinical trials. However, at this time, we are not aware of any open clinical trials.

Focused Ultrasound Therapy

Focused ultrasound is a noninvasive, therapeutic technology with the potential to improve the quality of life and decrease the cost of care for patients with thyroid cancer. This novel technology focuses beams of ultrasonic energy precisely and accurately on targets in the body without damaging surrounding normal tissue.

How it Works
Where the beams converge, focused ultrasound produces precise ablation (thermal destruction of tissue) enabling thyroid cancer to be treated without surgery. Focused ultrasound can also be used at lower intensities to enhance the delivery of therapeutics such as chemotherapy and immunotherapy to cancerous cells.

Advantages
The primary option for treatment of thyroid cancer is surgical removal, which has the issues of nerve injury or other surgical complications, anesthesia and wound healing.

For certain patients, focused ultrasound could provide a noninvasive alternative to surgery with less risk of complications – such as surgical wound healing or infection – at a lower cost. It can reach the desired target without damaging surrounding tissue and is repeatable, if necessary.

Clinical Trials

There are currently no clinical trials recruiting patients for the treatment of thyroid cancer.

The Foundation updates these pages regularly, but with the increasing number of clinical trials, we want to be sure that our audience has the latest information available. Therefore, we also added the website search information for the above trials. If you click here, it will take you to the latest information available from https://www.clinicaltrials.gov/. 

Regulatory & Reimbursement

Focused ultrasound treatment for thyroid cancer is not yet approved by regulatory bodies or covered by medical insurance companies.

Notable Papers

Jasim S, Patel KN, Randolph G, Adams S, Cesareo R, Condon E, Henrichsen T, Itani M, Papaleontiou M, Rangel L, Schmitz J, Stan MN. American Association of Clinical Endocrinology Disease State Clinical Review: The Clinical Utility of Minimally Invasive Interventional Procedures in the Management of Benign and Malignant Thyroid Lesions. Endocr Pract. 2022 Apr;28(4):433-448. doi: 10.1016/j.eprac.2022.02.011.

Kuo JH, Sinclair CF, Lang B, Spiezia S, Yu M, Ha EJ, Na DG, Offi C, Patel KN, Baek JH. A comprehensive review of interventional ablation techniques for the management of thyroid nodules and metastatic lymph nodes. Surgery. 2022 Apr;171(4):920-931. doi: 10.1016/j.surg.2021.07.043. Epub 2021 Nov 12.

Fröhlich E, Wahl R. Nanoparticles: Promising Auxiliary Agents for Diagnosis and Therapy of Thyroid Cancers. Cancers (Basel). 2021 Aug 12;13(16):4063. doi: 10.3390/cancers13164063.

Liu Y, Ma Y, Peng X, Wang L, Li H, Cheng W, Zheng X. Cetuximab-conjugated perfluorohexane/gold nanoparticles for low intensity focused ultrasound diagnosis ablation of thyroid cancer treatment. Sci Technol Adv Mater. 2021 Feb 1;21(1):856-866. doi: 10.1080/14686996.2020.1855064.

Click here for additional references from PubMed.