Advertisement His mother, Ada, had a brain tumor and had seen doctors weekly in 1967.
 |
Franciscan Skemp ear, nose and throat surgeon Dr. Scott Blanke.
PETER THOMSON photo |
“I was impressed with what the doctors could do for my mom,” Blanke said.
His mother, now 80, and his father, Donald, 84, are still living.
Blanke, 54, is an otolaryngologist — or an ear, nose and throat specialist — at Franciscan Skemp Healthcare.
He majored in biology at the University of Illinois, where he also received a master’s degree in immunology. He graduated from Chicago Medical School in 1980.
“During my junior year of medical school, I decided I wanted to cure people, and not take care of the same patients,” Blanke said. “I wanted to work in a broad area with adults and children. ENT fit my interests.”
He had an internship at Loyola University (Ill.) and a four-year residency focused on plastic surgery at the University of Iowa. Blanke has been at Franciscan Skemp since 1985.
“Every single day, I look forward to my work,” he said.
He and his wife, Heidi, director of WAFER, have three children: Deah, 25, Aaron, 23, and Hannah, 18.
Blanke said he is concerned about the rising number of thyroid cancer cases. He was asked to answer some questions about the cancer.
Q: What is a thyroid and what does it do?
A: The thyroid is a midline neck gland that takes chemical messages from your brain and creates chemicals that help regulate your metabolism.The thyroid is composed of three lobes, looks just like a butterfly and sits on top of your windpipe. Your important voice box nerve runs right under the thyroid, your major artery to the brain runs right next to the thyroid and your calcium glands sit on top of your thyroid.
Q: How does thyroid cancer develop?
A: When one of the cell types of the thyroid turns into an aggressive cancer, it invades or goes outside the lining of the thyroid called the capsule. It can sometimes jump to lymph nodes (metastasis) and even can jump to the lung at a more advanced stage. The cell type depends on which kind of cancer is diagnosed.
Q: What are the symptoms of thyroid cancer?
A: The problem with the early detection of thyroid cancer is that the symptoms are a painless neck mass in the lower one-third of your neck. Thyroid cancers rarely present with changes in your metabolism, either rapid or slowed. They are rarely present with skin changes, and unfortunately they are rarely present with significant pain.
The rarest kind of thyroid cancer, anaplastic, often grows so quickly that it can present with pain at the site of the large neck mass and occasionally even presents with pain going to the patient’s ear.
Q: How common is it? I heard it’s on the rise.
A: It is estimated that there will be diagnosed over 30,000 new cases of thyroid cancer this year. Thyroid cancer is considered the fastest rising incidence among cancers in the United States, with new cases increasing at a rate of approximately 4 percent per year.
According to the National Cancer Institute, thyroid cancer is the fastest-growing cause of cancer-related death among men. It is predicted that about 350,000 people in the United States are living with the diagnosis of thyroid cancer now.
Thyroid cancer occurs three times more often in women than in men, and it is in the top 10 of all cancer diagnoses for women. Some autopsy studies show that 1 out of every 10 Americans have thyroid lumps or nodules and 5 percent to 10 percent of all thyroid nodules can be cancerous.
Some predisposing factors for thyroid cancer include radiation exposure, especially childhood radiation therapy; prolonged thyroid-stimulating hormone stimulation either through radiation treatment or a heredity factor; and finally family predisposition to thyroid cancer or chronic goiters. The largest rise in thyroid cancer is believed to be the result of environmental radiation exposure such as the Chernobyl disaster. The rise in thyroid cancer in Eastern Europe is huge.
Q: How is it detected early?
A: Good neck exams should be done monthly by all high-risk age groups, especially people who have been exposed to radiation therapy. Routine physicals must include neck exams and even sports physicals in the high school should include a good neck exam, looking for any thyroid lumps.
Finding a painless neck lump doesn’t always mean thyroid cancer, but ignoring a painless lump is fraught with danger and an appropriate referral to the thyroid specialist for workup is mandatory. The workup could include an ultrasound of the thyroid, blood tests and often a relatively painless needle biopsy done in the specialist’s office.
Q: What can be done if it is detected early?
A: Early detection of thyroid cancer will allow a smaller neck operation than either a total or near total thyroidectomy operation. The need for a neck dissection for a lymph node metastasis is not mandatory if the thyroid cancer is detected early. Other therapies are not as necessary if thyroid cancer is detected early. Only surgery is performed if there are no lymph node metastasis.
It is also important to know if the primary cancer site has not grown outside the thyroid capsule. The use of lumpectomies or even partial thyroidectomies is still controversial, and even with early thyroid cancer detection, it is not known whether a partial thyroidectomy in a younger person is an adequate enough surgery.
Dr. Scott Blanke answers more questions about thyroid cancer, plus you can submit your own questions by clicking on the Health Q&A link at www.lacrossetribune.com.
