Check Your Necks
Story Highlight
As part of the campaign, there will be neck check clinics at various shopping centres around the country, including MetroCentre Gateshead (Saturday 24th September) where top thyroid cancer clinicians from hospitals across the region will be carrying out free neck checks on people. They'll be checking for lumps that could be cancerous and should be checked out and offering advice to people
Check your necks - the message being spread by a North East woman who survived thyroid cancer.
Kate Farnell from Rowlands Gill was diagnosed with thyroid cancer in 2000 at the age of 42 when her neck swelled up over night.
She used her experiences to set up the Butterfly Thyroid Cancer Trust.
The charity, which is the only one of its kind in the country, is holding a special event at the Metro Centre on Saturday 24th September checking people's necks for lumps.
The checks will be taking place on the balcony outside Waterstones and Mothercare in the first floor of the Central Mall, and it will be available between 10am and 5pm.
Thyroid cancer is now the fastest increasing cancer in women in the UK and the US and will usually affect women aged 25-40.
It also affects men and children and this year Kate has lost young people, one 26 year old man and one 32 year old woman to this disease. Early detection of their disease would have saved them both and lead to cure for the majority of patients – as it did for Kate personally.
Kate's been talking to our reporter Chloe Shearer:
About Thyroid Cancer
* Thyroid Cancer is rare, but numbers are rising. Currently, this stands at approx. 1800 new cases in the UK each year.
* More prevalent in women than men, at a ratio of 2-1, Thyroid Cancer is the most common endocrine malignancy and is one of the fastest increasing cancers in women in the UK,US and Australia.
* Between 2000 and 2007, the increase in new thyroid cancer cases is 42% in men, 45% in women, and 41% (both sexes)
* A 41% increase is: 2.2 per 100,000 people in 2000 rising to 3.1 per 100,000 people in 2007
Change over 10 years: between 1997 and 2007, the increase in new thyroid cancer cases is 63% (both sexes), ie from 1.9 per 100,000 people in 1997 to 3.1 per 100,000 people in 2007
* Prognosis for patients with differentiated Thyroid Cancer is excellent, with an 80-90% cure rate.
For more about Kate's story you can visit the charity's website:
Butterfly Thyroid Cancer Trust
And for more about the first thyroid cancer awarness campaign you can look here:
Neck Check 2011
