Application of scientific developments into clinical practice

In 2002, in the Republic of Belarus, the incidence rate of thyroid cancer in comparison with 1986 increased by a factor of 5.7, and amounted to 8,6 cases per 100 000. The increase of prevalence of thyroid cancer continues, especially for adolescents and young adults. For the period of 17 years in the republic have been operated 9526 patients, including 728 children, 414 adolescents and 856 young adults under 35 years. In this group consisting of 1998 patients, in 184 (9.2 %) lung metastases have been diagnosed. In the long-term period after the treatment 19 (0.9 %) died of tumor progression. The remaining 1979 (99.5 %) survived. The minimum lethality of young patients with thyroid cancer is achieved due to the excellent qualification of doctors and technical equipment of the Center, improvement of cancer detection in regions at the pre-hospital stage and timely rehabilitation in case of arisen complications. Scientific developments of the Republican Center contributed to the improvement of treatment of patients with thyroid cancer. Standardization of treatment modes of patients have been developed based on latest developments of the world science in the thyroid research area. The method of optimal treatment of children and adolescents has been developed and introduced into practice. Radioiodine treatment with the use of new technologies has been introduced into clinical practice. The surgical technique has been improved for recurrent, locally-spread and cervical- mediastinal cancer. Clinical-biological features of radiation-induced cancer, including the study on the molecular-genetic level have been studied, and its highly aggressive nature have been determined being revealed by early and multiple metastatic disease. Necessity has been justified to carry out preventive cervical neck lympho-dissection for patients with radiogenic cancer, if metastases have been not clinically revealed. All these developments are represented in the instruction and the treatment protocol for patients of the order of the Ministry of Health of Belarus N 280 dd. 4.11.97 'About measures for detection, diagnostics, treatment, rehabilitation and regular medical check-up of patients with thyroid cancer and other thyroid neoplasms'. The new scientific trend of the Republican Center is the development of microtransplantation of thyreocytes and parathyreocytes for patients with thyroid cancer who had to undergo total thyroidectomy. Continuation of the molecular-generic research will allow to determine the cause of aggressiveness of the tumor induced by ionizing radiation, and also to promote improvement of early diagnostics (authors)