Presentation of Thyroid Cancer
Thyroid lumps form more than one third of the cases seen in patients with neck lumps. The main presentation of thyroid cancer is with simple NON symptomatic lump in the lower part of the neck. The lump that moves up with swallowing in the lower part of the neck is in the majority of thyroid origin. This test can be conducted by the patient by feeling on the lump and swallowing, if the lump moves up on swallowing, it is likely to be thyroid in origin. In the normal circumstance, the thyroid gland should not be easily felt.
Effects
Thyroid lumps that are cancerous in general feel hard and may be more fixed to the surrounding tissue because it may have invaded the surrounding structures. Thyroid cancer can also present with other symptoms such as hoarse of voice (due to the voice nerve destruction), breathing difficult (due to underlying wind pipe obstruction by the gland or chest mass), swallowing discomfort (due to the size of the mass) or a upper neck swellings (due to spread of the tumour to the neck lymph glands).
