Why Treatment Must Change and What Patients Can Do
Dr. Bianco’s long-awaited book is now available from the University of Chicago Press in several formats.
A quick scan until I have the time to read it thoroughly brings out some mind blowing but not unexpected r4esearch based concepts – that many patients have been ignored or left behind, that TSH shouldn’t be the be all and end all of measuring response to thyroid hormones and that much of the evidence cited in the ATA Guidelines to justify opinions is poor quality.
A great place to begin is by reading the Epilogue describing how and why this esteemed physician researcher addressed this topic.
“…Not until decades later did some of us start asking ourselves how all patients feel on T4— or simply what they prefer. It took much grief for us to open our eyes. Patients were embarrassed and ashamed by what they had become; they were losing their jobs, disrupting their families.
“Things were right there in front of our eyes. Since 1970, some patients were already saying that they were not feeling well, that they were experiencing residual symptoms of hypothyroidism. They wrote letters, sent emails, and signed petitions. Yes, we knew from studies done in Cardiff, Amsterdam, and Portland that treatment with T4 did not restore quality of life or cognition for all patients. We also knew that it did not restore T3 levels— the molecule that we understood is the most important thyroid hormone.
“However, most of the time, we just ignored the evidence, didn’t talk about it. We set a bar for combination therapy that was so much higher than the one set for T4 in the 1970s.”
Dr. Bianco’s book belongs in the library of every Thyroid Cancer Survivor and every physician they encounter in their journey. The diagnosing primary physician or endocrinologist, the endocrine surgeon and every patient and caregiver needs to understand the life long impact of thyroid cancer and it’s often unresolved ongoing symptomology. The impact on the broader hypothyroidism community, to which we owe much as thyroid cancer patients, is also undeniable.
Dr. Bianco’s book is available here:
Rethinking Hypothyroidism
Why Treatment Must Change and What Patients Can Do
Antonio C. Bianco, MD
https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/R/bo183892827.html
Thyroid Cancer Advocates 