According to a Reuters.com article, the post-op pathology found that Argentine President, Cristina Fernandez, did not have thyroid cancer, at all. The article says this happens 2% of the time.
I don't know that I would want part of my body removed if it didn't need to be. I think if this happened to me, after my chances of cancer increased from 5% to 20-30% due to the presence of what looked like hurthle cells from my FNA, and knowing the history of cancer in my parent's lineage, I think I'd be upset that my left thyroid was removed for no reason at all. What is that saying, that hindsight is always 20-20? I'd have to agree with that since the cancer cells in my left lobe were different from the those in the right. If my left lobe came out clean, they would not have found the cancer in my right lobe until much later. What then? I might be in the "over age 45 group" and in stage 2, maybe also some lymph node invasion since one of the three foci was close to the margin. I think it would be far worse for me to have to deal with the real cancer scare five, even 10 years later. I am lucky all of it was caught early.
I wish the best for the Argentine President. She had a total thyroidectomy, so no worries about cancer showing up in the other lobe (if only half of her thyroid was taken out) years later, and she doesn't have to go through RAI. Not sure what the T4 protocol would be since she doesn't have cancer, but she will have to take it for the rest of her life. I hope her doctors follow up with annual testing (blood work, ultrasounds, etc.) just to make sure nothing ever shows up in her thyroid bed. Better to be on the over cautious side, regardless of her current non-cancer diagnosis.
