Moderate TSH suppression may be better for patients with thyroid cancer

the Oncology Nurse Advisor take:

According to a new study published online ahead of print in the journal Thyroid, researchers have found that moderate thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH) suppression may be as beneficial as high suppression of the hormone responsible for driving thyroid cancer.

Higher TSH levels are associated with higher rates of thyroid cancer recurrence, but extreme suppression of TSH is linked with increased adverse events, such as arrhythmias and osteoporosis.

For the 30-year study, researchers analyzed data from 4,941 patients with thyroid cancer. Results showed that extreme TSH suppression offered no additional survival benefit compared with moderate TSH suppression in patients with high-risk disease. Moreover, researchers found that mild TSH suppression was beneficial for patients with low-risk thyroid cancer.

The findings suggest that further research is warranted to prospectively evaluate extreme TSH suppression versus moderate suppression in patients with high-risk thyroid cancer.