患者の方へ
覚道甲状腺病理診断室の開設のお知らせ。
2015/09/17
このたび大阪市のすみれクリニック内に、覚道健一甲状腺病理診断室を開設いたしました。http://www.thyroid.jp/thyrocyte をご覧ください。内部の標本だけでなく、他施設の標本についても（有料ですが）、診断、コンサルテーションをお受けする体制をとっています。今までは組織標本を中心にコンサルテーション体制で対応していましたが、細胞検査士の応援も得て、甲状腺細胞診に特化した細胞診断を運営したいと企画しています。検査所でのクラス３、鑑別困難の多い（検体の半数が結論の出ない診断のような例をうかがっています）安全運転のため、あいまいで結論の出ない細胞診に満足されていない方々に、臨床に役立つ診断方式（日本甲状腺診療ガイドラインによる）での細胞診断を提供いたします。甲状腺細胞診に特化した診断を提供できる施設は、当施設以外には、ほぼ皆無と思います。11月スタートを予定しています。ご利用ください。
category: 患者の方へ , 病理医の方へ , 細胞診専門医、細胞検査士の方へ , 臨床医の方へ , 近況報告 comment: (0)
甲状腺細胞診『鑑別困難』特集
2015/09/17
甲状腺細胞診『鑑別困難』の特集を私が編集を担当しています J Basic and Clinical Medicineに掲載しました。論文内容を見たり、ダウンロードすることは無料（open access）の雑誌ですので、以下のURL http://sspublications.org/index.php/JBCM/index をご覧ください。中国、米国、イタリア、スイス、日本の著者から12編の論文を投稿いただきました。残念ながら英語の論文で、日本語でも順次これらを紹介したいと思っています。11月には、少し方向は違いますが、第54回秋期大会（名古屋）でシンポジウム『甲状腺細胞診（鑑別困難）を発癌の分子メカニズムから考える』を開催いたします。また来年5月横浜での国際細胞学会でも、『Comparison of different diagnostic systems of thyroid cytology, current and future.』をシンポジウムとして行います。興味のある方はご参加ください。
category: 患者の方へ , 病理医の方へ , 細胞診専門医、細胞検査士の方へ , 臨床医の方へ comment: (0)
甲状腺癌被包型乳頭癌濾胞亜型が変わりました。
2015/04/16
NIFT
甲状腺癌の過剰診断、過剰診療、過剰治療について。
2015/02/09
現在米国では（文献1，2参照）、甲状腺癌だけでなく、乳癌、前立腺癌などで、検診による早期発見、早期治療の功罪が問題とされています。早期発見早期治療により救われた生命よりも、治療の必要のない病変（治療しなくても生命予後に悪影響のない病変、近藤誠先生の『がんもどき』など）を、多数発見し、『がん』として治療することにより、
A) 癌死亡の減少に貢献していない。（癌患者は増えたが、癌死亡数は増えていない）
B) 医療費の無駄遣いをしている。
C) 患者を苦しめている。（治療しないで放置しても無害な病変を、お節介にも見つけて、無駄で有害な治療をしている）
などと議論されています。患者の皆様、臨床医の皆様どのようにお考えでしょうか？
患者の立場としては、見つかった病変を治療しないで持ち続けることは、たぶん不安でたまらないでしょう。少数かもしれませんが、本当の癌（治療しないで放置すると進行し、癌のために死亡する）かもしれません。後で後悔することがないように、普通の人は、迷うかもしれませんが、多くの場合、治療を受けようと考えるのではないでしょうか？このホームページの『医療の不確実性』の項を参照ください。
ここでは２点に分けて議論しなければいけないと考えています。
1. 病変の性質を正確に判断し、治療したほうがいいか、治療しないでそのまま持ち続けるかの判断をする。
ここで病理医の役割（本当の癌か癌に類似した無害な病変の区別）があります。
2. 治療が必要と判断した時、治療方法の中から、最も適した（治療効果が高く、治療による不愉快な、悪影響を最小にする）選択肢は何かを考える。
治療の中心を担うのは臨床医ですが、ここでも病理医の示す、病変の性質、病気の進み具合（病期）の診断が、治療方法の選択に重要な参考資料、判断根拠となります。
1. Esserman LJ et al: Addressing overdiagnosis and overtreatment in cancer: a prescription for change. Lancet Oncol, 15:e234-242, 2014.
2. Luster M et al: Differentiated thyroid cancer-personalized therapies to prevent overtreatment. Nat Rev Endocrinol 10:563-574, 2014.
A) 癌死亡の減少に貢献していない。（癌患者は増えたが、癌死亡数は増えていない）
B) 医療費の無駄遣いをしている。
C) 患者を苦しめている。（治療しないで放置しても無害な病変を、お節介にも見つけて、無駄で有害な治療をしている）
などと議論されています。患者の皆様、臨床医の皆様どのようにお考えでしょうか？
患者の立場としては、見つかった病変を治療しないで持ち続けることは、たぶん不安でたまらないでしょう。少数かもしれませんが、本当の癌（治療しないで放置すると進行し、癌のために死亡する）かもしれません。後で後悔することがないように、普通の人は、迷うかもしれませんが、多くの場合、治療を受けようと考えるのではないでしょうか？このホームページの『医療の不確実性』の項を参照ください。
ここでは２点に分けて議論しなければいけないと考えています。
1. 病変の性質を正確に判断し、治療したほうがいいか、治療しないでそのまま持ち続けるかの判断をする。
ここで病理医の役割（本当の癌か癌に類似した無害な病変の区別）があります。
2. 治療が必要と判断した時、治療方法の中から、最も適した（治療効果が高く、治療による不愉快な、悪影響を最小にする）選択肢は何かを考える。
治療の中心を担うのは臨床医ですが、ここでも病理医の示す、病変の性質、病気の進み具合（病期）の診断が、治療方法の選択に重要な参考資料、判断根拠となります。
1. Esserman LJ et al: Addressing overdiagnosis and overtreatment in cancer: a prescription for change. Lancet Oncol, 15:e234-242, 2014.
2. Luster M et al: Differentiated thyroid cancer-personalized therapies to prevent overtreatment. Nat Rev Endocrinol 10:563-574, 2014.
A patient’s message from Turkey
2013/12/25
Dear Dr Kakudo
I wanted to write to you about how I feel on your second opinion diagnosis. For people who will read this story for the first time I would like to simply explain my situation. I’m a male at my 37. I had lobectomy operation due to a thyroid nodule of 2.7cm in size at my left thyroid lobe. Pathology report after surgery said “Follicular Variant of Papillary Carcinoma” and I was advised to go for completion surgery and radioactive iodine (RI) treatment.
After reading many articles including yours about borderline lesions I started to question if surgery was the best option for my health or not. Then I started to follow “thyroid cancer survivors association group” at “inspire.com”. Following this site gave me a better understanding of how people feel without thyroid gland, short and long term side effects. And based on an advice from a friend from that group I decided to contact you and you kindly accepted to give me your second opinion.
Your diagnosis result says “findings are incomplete and do not fulfill histopathologic criteria for either follicular carcinoma or papillary carcinoma”. And this type of tumor are “practically benign after simple excision”. This difference in opinion obviously makes a big change for management of the disease. No need for completion surgery and no need for RI treatment.
As a patient going through all this on one hand I feel lucky because it’s not a genuine cancer case where none of above mentioned discussion could be possible. I also feel lucky because I had a chance to read and better understand risks and downsides of surgery and RI treatment before deciding anything further. On the other hand not going down that road may have other risks in specific cases and today we are not 100% sure about long term outcome for each individual. However statistically there is a strong evidence that we are almost 100% sure (your study shows 0,03% missing malignancy judging) there will be no recurrence or distant metastasis.
Reflecting on my case and many others it’s clear to me that there is a difference in opinion between pathologists and this has a direct impact on management of the disease. Important point to me is to give enough information to patients so that they can make their own decisions. Not just say this is your problem and this is the one and only solution. Take it or not! I could have felt much better if risks of surgery and RI and not doing that was explained to me objectively. At the end it’s my life and I have to make a decision. Why should I have to find out difficulties in diagnosis and even classification of borderline lesions by myself? How many people will (be able to) do what I did? And how many people will just do what is told? Therefore how many people will possibly be treated for nothing? And their quality of life and feeling about their health is impacted adversely for the rest of their lives.
I hope answers to above questions will be discussed more and more in the coming years. And until we find a clear method to identify what is definitely malignant and what is not I hope doctors around the world will give more information to their patients and explain real difficulty to make this identification. And let people decide what is best for themselves.
Finally I want to say thank you for your second opinion diagnosis which made a big change in my life. And a big thank you for your life time studies and sharing what you believe is right to make a change in people’s lives.
I wanted to write to you about how I feel on your second opinion diagnosis. For people who will read this story for the first time I would like to simply explain my situation. I’m a male at my 37. I had lobectomy operation due to a thyroid nodule of 2.7cm in size at my left thyroid lobe. Pathology report after surgery said “Follicular Variant of Papillary Carcinoma” and I was advised to go for completion surgery and radioactive iodine (RI) treatment.
After reading many articles including yours about borderline lesions I started to question if surgery was the best option for my health or not. Then I started to follow “thyroid cancer survivors association group” at “inspire.com”. Following this site gave me a better understanding of how people feel without thyroid gland, short and long term side effects. And based on an advice from a friend from that group I decided to contact you and you kindly accepted to give me your second opinion.
Your diagnosis result says “findings are incomplete and do not fulfill histopathologic criteria for either follicular carcinoma or papillary carcinoma”. And this type of tumor are “practically benign after simple excision”. This difference in opinion obviously makes a big change for management of the disease. No need for completion surgery and no need for RI treatment.
As a patient going through all this on one hand I feel lucky because it’s not a genuine cancer case where none of above mentioned discussion could be possible. I also feel lucky because I had a chance to read and better understand risks and downsides of surgery and RI treatment before deciding anything further. On the other hand not going down that road may have other risks in specific cases and today we are not 100% sure about long term outcome for each individual. However statistically there is a strong evidence that we are almost 100% sure (your study shows 0,03% missing malignancy judging) there will be no recurrence or distant metastasis.
Reflecting on my case and many others it’s clear to me that there is a difference in opinion between pathologists and this has a direct impact on management of the disease. Important point to me is to give enough information to patients so that they can make their own decisions. Not just say this is your problem and this is the one and only solution. Take it or not! I could have felt much better if risks of surgery and RI and not doing that was explained to me objectively. At the end it’s my life and I have to make a decision. Why should I have to find out difficulties in diagnosis and even classification of borderline lesions by myself? How many people will (be able to) do what I did? And how many people will just do what is told? Therefore how many people will possibly be treated for nothing? And their quality of life and feeling about their health is impacted adversely for the rest of their lives.
I hope answers to above questions will be discussed more and more in the coming years. And until we find a clear method to identify what is definitely malignant and what is not I hope doctors around the world will give more information to their patients and explain real difficulty to make this identification. And let people decide what is best for themselves.
Finally I want to say thank you for your second opinion diagnosis which made a big change in my life. And a big thank you for your life time studies and sharing what you believe is right to make a change in people’s lives.
