We routinely send your doctors the operative report and pathology report.
When you see your doctor in followup, they will have a copy of the operative report and pathology report, along with a copy of the photo we take of what we removed.
Parathyroid Glands
Our surgeons take a very small “shave” biopsy (like the head of a pin) of the normal parathyroid glands to see if they are normal or abnormal, and to measure how much parathyroid hormone (PTH) they are producing. These small biopsies go to the pathologist who generates a report that simply says “parathyroid tissue identified”. Parathyroid tumors are never cancerous, so the pathologist is not looking for cancer. Therefore, there is nothing to see with the pathology report of parathyroid glands. We have seen 2 cases of parathyroid cancer in some 60,000 cases. You do not have parathyroid cancer and thus there is nothing to see in the pathology report of the parathyroid glands.
Thyroid Nodules
We remove thyroid growths and nodules in about 20% of the operations we perform. As thyroid cancer can occur in a small number of thyroid nodules, these are always examined by the pathologists specifically to examine for cancer. This biopsy process by the pathologists takes about 3 days to perform. Occasionally, this can take a week or even two if we need to have other specialists look at it. Historically, only about 5% of the thyroid nodules or growths we remove have cancer in them—we error on the side of not leaving a cancer in you. And, often, many of these are very small cancers and removal of the nodule is all that is necessary. We do not want you to worry about this. We will call you if there is any bad or worrisome news. No news is good news! If you want to read more about thyroid nodules, go here: www.thyroidcancer.com/thyroid-nodule/
Did you know that in late 2016 the Norman Parathyroid Center recruited the number 1 thyroid cancer surgeon in the US to join our team? Dr Gary Clayman was the Chief of Surgical Oncology at MD Anderson for 17 years before coming to Tampa to open the Clayman Thyroid Cancer Center. We work side by side Dr Clayman and his team and if any of our patients need the world’s best thyroid surgeons, we have them right next door! Read more about Dr Clayman here: www.thyroidcancer.com/dr-gary-clayman-md . If you want to know more about thyroid surgery, go to the front page of this great website: www.thyroidcancer.com.