Thyroid Cancer

Rates of thyroid cancer are well above the national average throughout the Philadelphia region. But why? They may be related to broader statistics that show high rates of many types of cancer in the Mid-Atlantic states, for reasons that scientists do not understand. Or, some experts suggest, they may be the result of all the medicine practiced locally - more tests lead to more diagnoses. Thyroid cancer also is found more often in older people, and more of them live here than in many other areas.

We've been nuked. And tens of thousands of us may develop thyroid cancer as a result of fallout from nuclear weapons testing in Nevada in the 1950s, federal health officials said yesterday. Every man, woman and child born before the 1960s was hit by radioactive fallout wafting across the country from blasts at the Nevada Test Site, the National Cancer Institute said. But compared to some places, the Philadelphia area got off easy. Levels of fallout here were lower than the average dose across the country, while parts of Montana and Idaho took the heaviest hits.

Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, who remains hospitalized after surgery related to thyroid cancer over the weekend, may be sicker than Supreme Court officials are willing to admit, several medical experts told the Inquirer Washington Bureau yesterday. His illness, announced just a week before the presidential elections, immediately renewed talk of how the makeup of the court is bound to change over the next few years. Three justices - including Rehnquist - are the constant subjects of retirement predictions and rumors, but none of them, before now, have had the imminent potential for a looming medical issue that could force them from their lifetime appointments.

DETROIT - Anna Fionda, a hairstylist who occupied the first chair at Edwin Paul Salon in Grosse Pointe Woods, Mich., for 27 years, drove herself to the hospital emergency room on Valentine's Day 2010. She was queasy, dehydrated, and feverish. The next thing she remembers is waking up in a hospital bed on March 13. She had developed a bacterial infection, which led to septic shock, and her body had shunted blood away from her appendages to save her vital organs and brain. Her limbs were black up to her elbows and knees.

Question: I heard of a study that showed lower Vitamin D levels in people who are depressed. Does taking Vitamin D help with depression? Answer: Vitamin D, the so-called sunshine vitamin, is the hottest vitamin under study these days, with studies coming out every month showing how supplemental D may protect against osteoporosis, heart disease, ovarian cancer, colon cancer, kidney cancer, prostate cancer, Parkinson's disease, multiple sclerosis,...

LONDON - Two years after Japan's nuclear plant disaster, an international team of experts said Thursday that residents of areas hit by the highest doses of radiation face an increased cancer risk so small it probably won't be detectable. In fact, experts calculated that increase at about 1 extra percentage point added to a Japanese infant's lifetime cancer risk. "The additional risk is quite small and will probably be hidden by the noise of other [cancer] risks like people's lifestyle choices and statistical fluctuations," said Richard Wakeford of the University of Manchester, one of the authors of the report.

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina - President Cristina Fernandez didn't have cancer after all. After some of Argentina's leading cancer surgeons completely removed Fernandez's thyroid gland, tests showed no presence of any cancerous cells in the tissue, presidential spokesman Alfredo Scoccimarro said Saturday. "The Presidential Medical Unit has the satisfaction of communicating that the team at the Austral University Hospital informed that tissue studies ruled out the presence of cancerous cells in the thyroid glands, thus modifying the initial diagnosis," Scoccimarro said.

Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist did not return to the Supreme Court yesterday. He acknowledged undergoing radiation and chemotherapy for the thyroid cancer he disclosed last week. The news - released the day before a presidential election that could decide who picks Rehnquist's successor - fueled speculation among doctors and court-watchers that the chief justice was quite ill and might be nearing a point where he could not continue in his position. "I'd say that for an 80-year-old man undergoing radiation and chemotherapy, maintaining a full schedule as chief justice is, at the very least, dubious," said Nicholas Sarlis, associate professor of medicine at the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston and a former top thyroid-cancer researcher at the National Institutes of Health.

NEW YORK - Call it compassionate, even political. But ... scientific? Several experts say there's no hard evidence to support the federal government's declaration this month that 50 kinds of cancer could be caused by exposure to World Trade Center dust. The decision could help hundreds of people get money from a multibillion-dollar World Trade Center health fund to repay those ailing after they breathed in toxic dust created by the collapsing twin towers on Sept. 11, 2001. But scientists say there is little research to prove that exposure to the toxic dust plume caused even one kind of cancer.

Dorothy Sucher, 77, whose $5-a-week reporting for a small-town newspaper 45 years ago led to a U.S. Supreme Court decision that bolstered freedom of the press, died Aug. 22 at her home in Silver Spring, Md. The cause was thyroid cancer, her husband, Joseph, said. She was reporting for the nonprofit Greenbelt News Review in Greenbelt, Md., in 1965 when she covered City Council meetings where residents railed against a real estate developer's position. Charles Bresler refused to sell the city a tract for a school unless it agreed to zoning variances on two of his other properties.

LONDON - Two years after Japan's nuclear plant disaster, an international team of experts said Thursday that residents of areas hit by the highest doses of radiation face an increased cancer risk so small it probably won't be detectable. In fact, experts calculated that increase at about 1 extra percentage point added to a Japanese infant's lifetime cancer risk. "The additional risk is quite small and will probably be hidden by the noise of other [cancer] risks like people's lifestyle choices and statistical fluctuations," said Richard Wakeford of the University of Manchester, one of the authors of the report.

It looks as if Lindsay Lohan , 26, is about to board an express train to jail. A Los Angeles judge on Wednesday revoked LiLo's probation from her 2011 necklace theft case after the actor was charged with three misdemeanor counts stemming from a June reckless driving case. LiLo allegedly slammed her Porsche into a dump truck in Santa Monica and lied about it to police. She claimed her assistant was behind the wheel. Her fate - she could get up to 245 days in jail - will be decided at a Jan. 15 hearing.

"DANCING WITH THE STARS" co-host Brooke Burke says she has thyroid cancer. Burke posted a video message Thursday on YouTube disclosing her condition and her plans for surgery to remove her thyroid. The 41-year-old mother of four says a lump on her thyroid was found during a routine biopsy. She says in the video that her surgery will leave "a nice big scar right here," tracing a line across her throat. All kidding aside, Tattle had a thyroidectomy at Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania seven or eight years ago. With a good surgeon, the scar heals so well, you can't even see it anymore.

LONDON - If they gave points for consistency, Matt Emmons would have three Olympic gold medals in the three-position air rifle event. Athens. Beijing. London. Three times, Emmons needed merely to make one last shot. Three times, the Mount Holly native produced his worst shot of the competition. Three times, he dropped in the final standings. This time, Emmons didn't fall all the way off the podium. He came away with a bronze medal, which is a fine achievement by any standards.

LONDON - Matt Emmons is back in the Olympics in spite of a few serious obstacles. Let's see. There was the shooting range in Minnesota that closed down. There was the difficulty with clothing that didn't pull or bunch up and interfere with his concentration. There was the quest to find a gun he really liked. There was the cancer. "I had a hell of a time finding a jacket that fit right," Emmons said. Wait a minute. Rewind a bit. What was that about cancer? Emmons, 31, a South Jersey native with a singular Olympic career marked by triumph as well as trip-ups, really did sound more concerned about the impact of his gun and clothing problems.

Medical technology is increasingly good at detecting abnormalities, but not so good at telling whether they are harmless. Afirma, a new gene expression test that University of Pennsylvania specialists helped to validate, promises to relieve this quandary for people with lumps on their thyroid gland. Thyroid "nodules" typically were detected only after they grew big enough to be felt in the neck, or interfered with the function of the thyroid, which makes hormones vital to metabolism.

NEW YORK - Call it compassionate, even political. But ... scientific? Several experts say there's no hard evidence to support the federal government's declaration this month that 50 kinds of cancer could be caused by exposure to World Trade Center dust. The decision could help hundreds of people get money from a multibillion-dollar World Trade Center health fund to repay those ailing after they breathed in toxic dust created by the collapsing twin towers on Sept. 11, 2001. But scientists say there is little research to prove that exposure to the toxic dust plume caused even one kind of cancer.

Government officials have now confirmed what they strongly suspected a year ago: The radioactive iodine-131 in some of the region's waterways, also found in minute amounts in Philadelphia's drinking water, is coming from thyroid patients. After patients swallow the chemical in capsule or liquid form, some of it passes into their urine, which then enters the wastewater-treatment system and winds up in rivers that provide drinking water, the officials said. Philadelphia's water is safe, according to officials from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the state Department of Environmental Protection, the Philadelphia Water Department, and the city Department of Health.

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina - President Cristina Fernandez didn't have cancer after all. After some of Argentina's leading cancer surgeons completely removed Fernandez's thyroid gland, tests showed no presence of any cancerous cells in the tissue, presidential spokesman Alfredo Scoccimarro said Saturday. "The Presidential Medical Unit has the satisfaction of communicating that the team at the Austral University Hospital informed that tissue studies ruled out the presence of cancerous cells in the thyroid glands, thus modifying the initial diagnosis," Scoccimarro said.

Question: I heard of a study that showed lower Vitamin D levels in people who are depressed. Does taking Vitamin D help with depression? Answer: Vitamin D, the so-called sunshine vitamin, is the hottest vitamin under study these days, with studies coming out every month showing how supplemental D may protect against osteoporosis, heart disease, ovarian cancer, colon cancer, kidney cancer, prostate cancer, Parkinson's disease, multiple sclerosis,...