The National Cancer Institute estimates that more than 37,000 Americans received a diagnosis of thyroid cancer in 2009. Vascular invasion makes the disease more difficult to battle as it ranges throughout the body.
Identification
Vascular invasion is the process of cancerous cells spreading from the main malignancy by way of the vascular system. The damaged cells enter the blood system, travel to the heart, and then are distributed to other areas of the body through transport in the blood flow.
Significance
A thyroid tumor with vascular invasion indicates that cancerous cells of the thyroid gland have spread (metastasis) and are growing and damaging another part of the body.
Types
Of the two most common forms of thyroid cancer, papillary and follicular, vascular invasion occurs more frequently with follicular carcinoma, as the malignant cells easily move into the veins and arteries inside the thyroid gland.
Effects
Follicular cancer is more aggressive than papillary. The lungs, bone, brain, liver, bladder and skin are the most common destinations for this spread with lymph nodes being affected less often.
Considerations
Age usually determines the prognosis. "Young people rarely die of their disease regardless of whether the surrounding lymph nodes were affected, tumor is left behind, or the tumor extends into the veins or outside of the tissue that encapsulates it," according to the New York Thyroid Center at Columbia University Medical Center. "However, for older patients all of these factors play a significant role."
Tags: cancerous cells, into veins, lymph nodes, most common, thyroid cancer
