Hey, I just wanted to let you know in the book Thyroid for dummies , it talks about how the thyroid is made up of a layer of "follicular cells" See, that is what I am confused about. That is why my dr said that you are going to have those cells in a biopsy. hmmmmmmm
I'm confused too. I thought I had it all figured out.
Producing follicular cells is normal, I know that much. I'm not sure how the follicles and arrangement of the cells helps them figure this stuff out. I am hoping this surgeon wouldn't recommend surgery if it wasn't needed. He told me I had a 10-15% chance of the thyroid having cancer. And he said that even if it is benign, it has the possibility of developing later, based on what he read on my Path report.
My report says follicular epithelial cells. Ha, so I do a search on epithelial and find that is normal too, so heck, I don't know now.
I really wish I was able to talk to the pathologist. I don't think we're allowed to call them. Maybe a pathologist could explain all of this better.
Thank you Kant for working on this together. Maybe, just maybe, between us, we'll figure this out before they yank the thing out of me.
Here is some new info for you to chew on....................I did some research on this adenoma thing...............( I can't post the site here ) but, a follicular adenoma is what they term a benign follicular lesion. That is what they called mine. Now, the adenoma itself can cause hyper symptoms even if located on the thyroid of someone with hashi's. To confuse matters worse.........it said that adenomas grow in the follicular cells of the thyroid hence the term "follicular lesion.". Can you believe all of this?
Now, I could not find ANY info saying that hashi's patients are more likely to develop cancer later on. There is a slight risk to hashi's patients of developing lymphoma. But like a 1% increase in risk. Hey, I agree, why have the thing yanked if you don't need too. My son;s ped just told me last week, that surgeons usually base their surgery decisions on financial business!!!! Unless it is life threatening, he said they will do it for personal gain!
I know how you feel, the word follicular lesion scares the crap out of you and I and the rest of us who have that term used on us, but, if it can be both cancer and benign, how are we to know? The lining of the edge of the cells are follicular cells and those are the cells and areas in which these growths grow. Another thing I read was that it seemed that neoplasm and adenoma are interchangeable in use.
It sure sounds like our path reports are close in nature......some different cell findings.....did your mention the colloid cells? See, I looked that up too and that is just a normal thyroid cell.
Let's work on this and see if we can't put our heads together and anyone else is welcome to join in. I know that nastyhashi has nodules, I am curious what her path report said.
Refresh my memory..........did your path show high rates of lymphcytes with destruction and changes in the nuclei? That is what my dr explained that they look at to determine the "exact" meaning.........if the nuclei is changed that is indicitive of nodules caused by inflammatory conditions.
