US panel recommends against thyroid cancer screening

Safety concerns for one in three US drugs

MIAMI, May 10, (AP): Screening for thyroid cancer is not recommended for adults with no symptoms, because there is no evidence it boosts survival and can lead to over-diagnosis and complications, an independent US medical task force said Tuesday.

“The US Preventive Services Task Force concludes with moderate certainty that screening for thyroid cancer in asymptomatic persons results in harms that outweigh the benefits,” said a statement updating the group’s 1996 guidelines.

The rate of thyroid cancer has risen faster than any other type of cancer in the last decade in the United States, climbing 4.5 percent per year, said the report in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).

But the mortality rate from thyroid cancer has not changed substantially, despite the increase in diagnoses.

Often, patients have a good prognosis. More than 98 percent of people diagnosed will survive the first five years.

Experts reviewed 67 studies on the accuracy of screening, whether by ultrasound or by feeling for lumps in the neck, and the benefits and harms of treatment of screendetected thyroid cancer.

It found “inadequate evidence” to judge the accuracy of either screening technique in people without symptoms.

The panel also found “inadequate direct evidence to determine whether screening for thyroid cancer in asymptomatic persons using neck palpation or ultrasound improves health outcomes.”

Any benefit would be small, because thyroid cancer is relatively rare.

The task force did, however find “adequate evidence of serious harms of treatment of thyroid cancer and evidence that over-diagnosis and overtreatment are likely consequences of screening.”

Meanwhile, two percent of patients This April 8, 2015 file photo shows a bottle of Bextra at a drugstore in

New York. (AP) have reported complications of thyroid surgery, including vocal cord paralysis; and 11 percent emerged with damaged glands -- numbers she described as “not trivial.”

Almost one in three newly approved drugs in the United States turns out to have a safety issue after it is allowed on the market, US researchers said Tuesday.

While these issues are rarely serious enough to get the drug pulled from the marketplace, researchers said new drugs should be monitored for years after they are released to the public.

Cutting-edge therapies known as biologics, psychiatric drugs, and medicines that were fast-tracked by the US Food and Drug Administration were most likely to require additional safety warnings after approval, said the report in Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).