Journal article
Do you want to participate in a clinical study as a healthy control? - Risk or benefit?
- Giessen H Department of Internal Medicine, Kantonsspital Aarau, Aarau 5000, Switzerland.
- Nebiker CA Department of Surgery, Kantonsspital Aarau, Aarau 5000, Switzerland.
- Bruehlmeier M Department of Nuclear Medicine, Kantonsspital Aarau, Aarau 5000, Switzerland.
- Spreitzer S Department of Pathology, Kantonsspital Aarau, Aarau 5000, Switzerland.
- Mueller B Department of Internal Medicine, Kantonsspital Aarau, Aarau 5000, Switzerland.
- Schuetz P Department of Internal Medicine, Kantonsspital Aarau, Aarau 5000, Switzerland. philipp.schuetz@ksa.ch.
- 2018-01-02
Published in:
- World journal of clinical cases. - 2017
English
A healthy woman volunteered to participate as "healthy control" in a study. An increased level of procalcitonin (PCT) was detected and remained elevated on follow-up measurements. As calcitonin levels were elevated as well, thyroid ultrasound was performed which revealed nodes in both thyroid lobes, one of them showing metabolic activity in positron emission tomography-computed tomography scan. To exclude a malignant thyroid cancer despite the negative findings in a fine needle aspiration the patient underwent thyroidectomy and a medullary thyroid carcinoma (MTC) was detected in the right lobe. MTC is a rare endocrine tumor with a poor prognosis once having spread, therefore early detection remains a priority for the outcome. Screening parameter is serum calcitonin, in absence of infection the pro-hormone PCT can be used as a screening parameter as well with high sensitivity.
- Language
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- English
- Open access status
- gold
- Identifiers
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- DOI 10.12998/wjcc.v5.i12.437
- PMID 29291203
- Persistent URL
- https://sonar.ch/global/documents/584
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