Treatment Options for Recurrent Thyroid Cancer

Treatment of recurrent thyroid cancer may include the following:

• Surgery with or without radioactive iodine therapy.
• Radioactive iodine therapy when the cancer can be found only by a thyroid scan and cannot be felt during a physical exam.
• External radiation therapy or intraoperative radiation therapy as palliative therapy to relieve symptoms and improve the quality of life.
• Chemotherapy.
• A clinical trial of a targeted therapy.

Check for U.S. clinical trials from NCI's list of cancer clinical trials that are now accepting patients with recurrent thyroid cancer. For more specific results, refine the search by using other search features, such as the location of the trial, the type of treatment, or the name of the drug. General information about clinical trials is available from the NCI Web site.