‘Overdiagnosis epidemic’ in thyroid cancer: University of Calgary researchers
CALGARY — A study by researchers at the University of Calgary suggests most people treated for thyroid cancer have tumours that would never pose any harm.
Dawnelle Topstad and James Dickinson, with the university’s Cumming School of Medicine, pored over four decades worth of Canadian data on the disease.
They found thyroid cancer incidence rates in Canada increased by almost six times in women and five times in men between 1970 and 2012.
There was a big spike after the early 1990s, when ultrasound technology came into wide use. The sharpest increase was in women between 40 and 60.