
The award-winning study found that ultrasound guidelines issued by the American Thyroid Association can reliably identify pediatric patients who should be biopsied for thyroid cancer.
Thyroid cancer is a common cause of cancer in teenagers, and the incidence is increasing for reasons that are unclear. Adolescents have a ten-fold greater incidence than younger children and the disease is five times more common in girls than in boys. The thyroid is a butterfly-shaped gland at the base of the neck that secretes hormones needed for regulation of growth, development and metabolism. Cancer may occur within lumps in the thyroid called nodules.