(WYTV) — Most of the lumps or nodules in your thyroid, which is a gland in your neck, are not harmful and we don’t have to treat them in any way. But sometimes, they can grow larger and cause problems, such as trouble swallowing.
In those cases, doctors might have to surgically remove them. There’s also another treatment that uses heat to shrink the nodules — there’s no surgery and it’s very successful.
“Radiofrequency ablation, which many people might simply call a RFA, is a way of targeting a specific part of the thyroid, an abnormal part, by delivering high energy into that specific area of the thyroid and destroying it,” said Dr. Marius Stan, an endocrinologist at Mayo Clinic.
Patients with enlarged, benign thyroid nodules are good candidates for RFA. Their nodules might be two inches in diameter. Along with keeping the thyroid function, RFA is an outpatient procedure with no scar left on the neck.
The hope is we can use radiofrequency ablation to destroy a thyroid cancer, otherwise cutting into the thyroid for cancer surgery would eliminate part of the thyroid.
