# The North American Thyroid Cancer Survivorship Study



## joplin1975 (Jul 21, 2011)

If you or anyone you know has had thyroid cancer, please encourage them to get in contact with the University of Chicago's North American Thyroid Cancer Survivorship Study, aimed at improving thyroid cancer survivors' quality of life. While the actual disease has generally a good prognosis, the NATCSS notes -- in an OpEd in Future Oncology - that: "The analysis of the first 1000 participants was completed at the end of 2015, and from it we found that thyroid cancer has a detrimental impact on a person's QoL, and the effect is much larger than anyone anticipated. In fact, QoL in thyroid cancer is about the same or worse than breast or colorectal cancer." They also note that people who fare the worst tend to be women who are younger and who have lower levels of educational attainment -- which to me, just underscores everything we've said here: you have to be your own advocate and those who are not as well-equipped to advocate for themselves tend to do worse.

I've already completed two surveys and am now submitting my DNA sample in hopes that it helps doctors better treat future patients.

If you are interested in enrolling, see: https://natcss.uchicago.edu/


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## WhatHappened (Nov 12, 2015)

Not a cancer survivor, but did they list what key indicators or obstacles were the leading cause for qol issues?

Edit: typo


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## joplin1975 (Jul 21, 2011)

Doing this from memory (I left the OpEd at home and I'm at work now), but the obstacles included: weight gain, fatigue, memory/cognition issues, sleep disruptions, vocal chord damage/voice disruptions, depression and related mental health issues.

The surveys ask a lot of questions related to those issues, but also touch on things which I would define broadly as social and professional. That is, they ask if people have a supportive network around them, if they were able to keep doing their job, if the appointments/surgeries/treatments impacted their job performance, if their employers permitted them time off work, if the respondent was involved in a church, if they were married or in a long term relationship, etc.

I can update with more specifics tonight.


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