Molecular testing for papillary thyroid cancer: Dr. Oliver Bathe
SAVE YOUR THYROID with Jennifer Holkem: Episode #78
Coming up in this episode:
“A couple of decades ago, most people were treated with a total thyroidectomy. You require lifetime thyroid hormone replacement. Sometimes you're at risk for other problems, chronically low calcium levels, injury to the nerves that are going to the vocal cords. It's really quite an impactful, potentially impactful surgery. If we can find ways to de-escalate the treatment — removing part of the thyroid, perhaps observing in some people, and now thermal ablation — it would be beneficial, because we avoid those complications that I just talked about. Having a tool that more exactly tells you the likelihood of a structural recurrence is going to be integral to that decision making. And Thyroid Guide PX has the capability of identifying a group of patients who have less than 4% recurrence rate. So, those would be the perfect patients who could be considered for these more conservative treatment approaches.” — Dr. Oliver Bathe
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What is this podcast and blog all about?
To my subscribers, welcome back! If you’re new, welcome to Save Your Thyroid, a podcast and blog all about thyroid nodules. My name is Jennifer Holkem, and I advocate for fellow patients suffering with this very common condition. Thyroid nodules impact 70% of adults in their lifetime, and the standard of care is surgical removal of half or all of the gland. But in recent years, safe and effective non-surgical treatment options have become available.
In this podcast and blog, I sit down with patients and physicians to discuss life with thyroid nodules, treatment options, and how to save the thyroid whenever possible.
Discussion topics in this episode:
Meeting Dr. Bathe at ATA
Facts about Thyroid Cancer
Three distinct sub-types of PTC
Making treatment decisions based on genetic data
Who is a candidate for thermal ablation
Thyroid Guide PX
The testing process and cost
Guest Introduction:
Today's guest is Dr. Oliver Bathe, the CEO and founder of Qualisure Diagnostics. Dr. Bathe is a surgical oncologist with over 25 years of clinical experience. As a result, he has an excellent understanding of the challenges that patients and clinicians face during their cancer journey. He has been involved in research that applies cutting-edge technological solutions to real clinical problems. In recent years, Dr. Bathe founded Qualisure Diagnostics, a company that develops molecular tests that enhance cancer care by identifying features that help oncologists personalize treatment. Through innovation and collaboration, Qualisure helps clinicians decide on the right treatment to provide personalized cancer care to every patient.
Interview Transcript
Jen: I am very excited to have you here with me today, Dr. Bathe. I would love to tell a little bit of the story of how we met at the ATA meeting, if you don't mind.
Jen: So just to give the viewers some context, I was able to attend this year's ATA, American Thyroid Association meeting, in Washington, DC. And that was actually the first time I was ever able to do that. So, it was very exciting to go to that meeting. I was also very excited because that this year's meeting, ATA did their first ever thyroid thermal ablation workshop. I was able to attend that as well.
And just as a side note, the ATA just released their guidelines, their first ever guidelines for thyroid ablation techniques for benign thyroid nodules. So this was a big deal, because now, the ATA is effectively endorsing thyroid thermal ablation techniques. Just for anyone doesn't know what thermal ablation is, that's just an umbrella term for ablation technique that uses (extreme) heat (or cold) to destroy thyroid nodules.
On the second day of the ATA meeting, I was sitting at the exhibit hall with my good friend and mentor, Gary Bloom, who's the executive director of ThyCa: Thyroid Cancer Survivors Association. I excused myself to go to the ladies room. Washing my hands, I happened to be a few sinks down from Alicia who works with you. We struck up a casual conversation. It didn't take long before we realized that this conversation was not just a coincidental encounter, but actually it was quite providential.
We went back to the exhibit hall and she shared with me all about Qualisure's testing, then later introduced me to you. Then I brought Gary over to the booth to meet you and to learn more about the testing. It was just an amazing encounter. And I'm so grateful that we connected there because there's so many implications for the testing that Qualisure makes for the patients that Save Your Thyroid helps. And I’m also very excited for patients and doctors to learn more about this, because this test is fairly new. We are going to talk in-depth about this test, Thyroid Guide PX.
But first, Dr. Bathe, please tell us a little bit more about yourself.
Oliver Bathe: So, I'm a surgical oncologist. I've been practicing for over 25 years. And in parallel to my clinical practice, I've had a research lab. Actually, my practice is not in the treatment of thyroid cancer, but it was in the treatment of liver cancers and pancreas cancers. And as you can imagine, those are very aggressive tumors. And so, my whole focus on my research was to develop tools to help to refine the clinical decision-making for those cancers.
Seven years ago, as part of a project for a postdoctoral fellow that was working in my lab, we created a machine learning algorithm. It scours really large genomic databases to identify the molecular features of cancer that are most closely related to survival outcomes. So we put this algorithm in about 11 different cancer types and put it on a a national supercomputer. Within a couple of weeks, we got some really interesting data and molecular signatures that helped us to distinguish whether a cancer is aggressive or not.
I showed this to some of my colleagues, and the ones that were most excited about it were the thyroid surgeons. They really were in need of a tool to help to select the best treatments for those patients with thyroid cancer. And as you know, thyroid cancer isn't often a life-threatening cancer, but it's a serious cancer. What we want to do is avoid overtreatment.
Jen: Tell us how this somewhat accidentally led to you becoming the CEO and founder of your company, Qualisure.
Oliver Bathe: My intention was never to be a business person, as you can imagine. My intention was really to develop tools to help clinicians to make better treatment choices, and also to help patients to avoid excessive and unbeneficial treatments. But what I've come to realize is if you really want true adoption, then unfortunately, commercialization is really essential to that whole process. The research team that helped to develop this has been integral to developing that company, Qualisure Diagnostics. We continue to do important research to enhance the evidence that our test, which is called Thyroid Guide PX, does what it's supposed to do. And it's a very unique test because, so far as far as I'm aware, there aren't any other tests that are built specifically for papillary thyroid cancer to help make these treatment decisions that you're talking about.
Facts about Thyroid Cancer
Thyroid cancer is actually considered a rare disease, but the incidence of thyroid cancer is increasing about 6% per year.
Papillary thyroid cancer is the most common type of thyroid cancer, about 80% of all thyroid cancers and is not usually life threatening (which is why it's so important to figure out these treatment options, right? Because you don't want to. compromise a patient's quality of life if they're going to be very likely to survive.)
Papillary thyroid cancer does not usually spread outside of the neck to distant parts of the body, but it can metastasize to local lymph nodes in the neck.
In the past, this cancer diagnosis always meant that a patient would need to undergo surgery, whether it be a total thyroidectomy (remove the entire thyroid), or just a hemithyroidectomy (remove just one side of the thyroid).
In more recent years, we have added the concept of active surveillance. In appropriate patients, we can actually not treat and just watch the cancer.
But today, some papillary thyroid cancer patients may be candidates for also non-surgical treatment options.
The risk of recurrence with PTC
Oliver Bathe: As you mentioned, papillary thyroid cancer doesn't tend to be life-threatening, although it can be in some individuals. What's really more impactful is the risk of a structural recurrence. In other words, the cancer coming back and requiring a second surgery. For years, thyroid surgeons and endocrinologists have tried to develop tools to determine the risk of that structural recurrence. And that helps them to determine the best treatment pathway for individuals.
A couple of decades ago, most people were treated with a total thyroidectomy, which means that you require lifetime thyroid hormone replacement. Sometimes you're at risk for other problems such as hypoparathyroidism — chronically low calcium levels. You can get injury to the nerves that are going to the vocal cords. So, it's really quite a potentially impactful surgery. If we can find ways to deescalate the treatment — removing part of the thyroid, perhaps observing in some people, and now thermal ablation — it would be beneficial because we can avoid those kind of complications that I just talked about. Having a tool that more exactly tells you the likelihood of a structural recurrence is going to be integral to that decision making. And Thyroid Guide PX has the capability of identifying a group of patients who have less than 4% recurrence rate. Those would be the perfect patients who could be considered for these more conservative treatment approaches.
Jen: If I'm a patient who has had surgical complications in the past and I don't want to have any more surgeries, I take this test, and I find out I'm one of those with less than 4% risk of recurrence; That could mean, it's pretty unlikely I would even need to have surgery. Perhaps I could do active surveillance?
Oliver Bathe: Yeah, possibly. You know, I think that takes a special kind of patient as well. That person would need to tolerate frequent follow-ups. Not everybody has that capability. Some people are too anxious to do active surveillance. I would certainly be comfortable with that, but other people want a particular treatment. So, when it comes to the treatment, you can also find more conservative management approaches that would hopefully avoid those side effects related to a total thyroidectomy.
Three distinct sub-types of PTC
Jen: You talked briefly about the machine learning that was used in the development of Thyroid Guide PX, and the three biologically distinct subtypes of papillary thyroid cancer that were discovered. Can you tell us more about that and how it differs from the ATA, American Thyroid Association Risk Stratification System?
Oliver Bathe: The machine learning helped us to identify 82 genes that are really closely related to structural recurrence. And then, we looked for patterns of expressions of those genes, kind of like fingerprints. We identified three patterns that were really, really interesting.
Type 1: Includes a lot of papillary thyroid cancers that are called follicular variants, and they had a certain pattern of mutations, what we call, RAS-like tumors. It had a low incidence of metastasis to the lymph nodes.
Type 3: Has a very high incidence of recurrence, has a lot of mutations which tend to be related to recurrence rate, and also had some other bad features. There were some similarities in the pattern that you would see in anaplastic thyroid cancer, which is a very aggressive thyroid cancer.
Type 2: If you looked at it under the microscope, it would be clinically indistinguishable from the type 3, but it has a very different pattern of these 82 genes and has a very, very low recurrence rate, even the ones that have mutation.
So there was some really interesting biology that I think that will merit some further research.
Genetic versus visual interpretation
Jen: So, it sounds like there are things being discovered here through this machine learning that, when a pathologist is examining this under a microscope, they would not be able to determine.
Oliver Bathe: Absolutely. You know, I think that we've been very reliant on looking at the size of a tumor, and looking at the microscopic features of a tumor. There are some features that we know are higher risk, but they don't always mean you'll have a structural recurrence. So with this approach, we’re looking at the molecular features of a cancer. The advantage of that approach is that it really informs us on the underlying biology of a cancer. So, you can have a very small tumor that you would think because of its size has a low risk of recurrence. But if it has really aggressive biology, then it actually confers a much higher risk of recurrence.
There are some other really big differences from the American Thyroid Association clinical risk score. Probably the most important thing is that you can actually do our testing prior to the surgery. Whereas, with the American Thyroid Association clinical risk stratification system, you need all the pathology information after surgery. You need all of the microscopic details to help to inform the risk estimation. So, doing this all upfront informs the entire treatment pathway, as opposed to using the ATA system where you look at it after surgery. And sometimes based on those findings, you even need a second surgery. So we think that it'll avoid that necessity to do a completion thyroidectomy.
Jen: In some cases, they remove half of the thyroid and run pathology on that while the patient is under anesthesia. If they find cancer, then they go ahead and remove the other half, versus undergoing a second surgery.
When that isn’t available, they run the pathology after surgery. If they find cancer, you need a second surgery. And unfortunately, having pathology run during surgery is not available everywhere in the US. So, having this knowledge before going into a surgery would be ideal.
Another thing that we hear a lot is, a patient has surgery (because they fear cancer) and they have their post surgical pathology come back benign. And they're so relieved. But I'm thinking, you had surgery and you maybe didn't need to. I would be more upset, but for some it is good to know you didn’t have cancer in there.
Oliver Bathe: Well, you know, I think related to that is another problem. So say you knew that it was cancer ahead of time and it was a really small tumor and your surgeon suggested doing a hemithyroidectomy. Then, when they look at it under the microscope, they find these features in there, like vascular invasion or what's called tall cell variants. Those usually suggests a worse prognosis. Then, they might actually suggest removing the remainder of the thyroid in a second operation. That's really stressful on patients, and its stressful on the doctors as well. It's a much more difficult surgery also. So if you can avoid that eventuality, that would be great. And having all the molecular information up front would, I think, avoid that scenario.
Making treatment decisions based on genetic data
Jen: So with the type 1 and the type 2, we've got a less aggressive profile and less likely to metastasize in the neck. And then with the type 3, we have a higher risk of that happening. And so with the patients who are a type 1 or a type 2, would they be candidates potentially for active surveillance or for a thermal ablation?
Oliver Bathe: We haven't actually done big studies on people who are undergoing active surveillance. So, I think that's some research that is required. But looking at it intuitively, those would be the ones that have the slower growing tumor. So those might be good candidates. And if there's any degree of anxiety in patients, then the results of the test might help them to feel more comfortable with that approach.
On the other hand, if you knew that you had an aggressive cancer, then that might sway you away from active surveillance. Again, we don't have any large studies based on that. That's just based on intuition. Similarly, if you have an aggressive cancer and you know it upfront, then you're going to want full treatment.
There's still a lot of room for clinical judgment here because if you happen to have a very large tumor and you have lymph nodes that your surgeon can feel, then that is obviously not a situation which would be good for conservative management, and should be treated more aggressively. The molecular testing is probably most helpful with the smaller earlier tumors.
Who is a candidate for thermal ablation
Jen: In today's landscape of treatment with thermal ablation, what we're seeing is that patients with sub-centimeter tumors aren't (usually) being treated.
Patients who are SOMETIMES candidates:
1-2 centimeter papillary thyroid cancers (PTC)
NO lymph node involvement
Tumor must be located inside of the lobe of the thyroid gland, not near any of the critical structures in the neck
Jen: And so a patient who meets all these criteria, and then takes this test and finds out they have a type 3 papillary thyroid cancer would NOT be a good candidate, because they would have that more aggressive profile. Even though all of the features of the tumor itself are ideal for treatment, they're going to be way more likely to have a recurrence. Is that what you're saying?
Oliver Bathe: That's exactly what the value of the test is. If you know that you have really aggressive biology, even though it's a small tumor, I think that would be very appropriately treated with a total thyroidectomy.
Jen: This is incredible, because this gives the patient so much more understanding of what they're dealing with. There is a little bit of anxiety I've seen from the patients seeking RFA for thyroid cancer. They wonder, Am I making a mistake and should I have surgery even though I don't want it? This test is providing data to help them actually make an informed decision about what is inside of this tumor and if its going to come back.
Oliver Bathe: Yeah, that's a good way to look at it. It is data. I mean, it's not meant to be a fortune teller, but it definitely gives you the level of risk and an understanding of that. If I was the patient and I knew that it was less than a 4% risk, I would be very comfortable to either watch it or do something more conservative.
Measurably improving patient care for thyroid cancer
Jen: Let’s discuss the reduction of aggressive surgery, use of active surveillance, and thermal ablation for papillary thyroid cancer.
Oliver Bathe: With these early tumors, only 19% of them are those type 3 cancers. Right now, a lot more patients are getting total thyroidectomies for those types of tumors than 19%. And so if you followed the algorithm based on just molecular features, I think that it would reduce the number of total thyroidectomies. It also reduces the incidence of completion thyroidectomies. I mentioned that situation where somebody gets a lobectomy, then they find some features that are high risk on the final pathology, and then they have to undergo a second surgery. This test reduces the likelihood of that, because if you trust the molecular test, then you'll stick with the lobectomy. Not only is that better for a patient's quality of life, but it also represents cost savings for the healthcare system.
Jen: I recently learned from an endocrinologist that there's a huge difference between having a total thyroidectomy and having a hemithyroidectomy, in regards to the patient's thyroid hormone management after surgery. Their quality of life is completely different. Every time we can reduce the surgery from a total to a hemi, it's always going to help the patient in the long term with their hormone management.
Oliver Bathe: I totally agree. I think a lot of people trivialize what's involved with thyroid hormone replacement. They say, oh, it's just a pill. You can take it. It's pretty easy. But you know, there are adjustments that are required. If it's a little too low, patients gain weight, and there's a level of depression. And if it goes too high, then there's other problems related to that, including anxiety. There's definitely an impact on quality of life with imbalances in thyroid hormones. So if you can avoid that, obviously that would have a really positive benefit.
Jen: Oh yes, I even know people who are just hypothyroid and they take medication, and they still are constantly having to adjust their hormones. It has an impact on their life even without a surgery. So, obviously removing part of the gland or all of the gland is going to have a significant impact on their hormone production and quality of life.
Thyroid Guide PX: A solution to an unmet clinical need
Oliver Bathe: Thyroid surgeons and endocrinologists have been looking for a molecular test to help to guide their treatment, something that is better than the current clinical risk stratification system, which is the ATA system.
Thyroid Guide PX really fits the bill that way. It performs much, much better than clinical risk stratification. Very assuredly gives you information on that subgroup of patients that have a very, very low risk of recurrence. And it's all available preoperatively. So, it's an unmet clinical need. I'm not aware of any other tests that does that.
The testing process
Jen: Can any doctor order this test, or do they need to be a certain type of doctor? Is it available anywhere?
Oliver Bathe: It is available anywhere, but our testing lab is in Orlando, Florida. So we're really focused on introducing this to the US. Typically, the doctor that would order this would be the person that's doing the fine needle biopsy. That could be a surgeon, an endocrinologist, or an interventional radiologist; although, any doctor could prescribe it if they wanted to. It's readily available anywhere and it's quite different from other molecular tests, in that it is specifically built for papillary thyroid cancer. Whereas, tests like Thyroseq, Affirma, Thyroid Print, and ThiroMIR, those are all tests that are really developed for the purpose of determining whether a nodule is likely to be cancer or benign. And so they're very helpful for that. This is quite different in that it's specifically for papillary thyroid cancer.
Jen: So if I were to go to my doctor and say that I really want this test, all my doctor would have to do is just order it.
Oliver Bathe: Yep, absolutely. So, we have those test requisitions online. Of course, as you know, we have a sales representative as well.
The testing process:
Your thyroid nodule is discovered.
Your doctor decides if it requires a biopsy.
Biopsy: Cells are taken out with a little needle and evaluated by the pathologist.
Results: If the pathologist thinks that this is completely benign, then nothing further is required.
Results: If they're not sure whether it's benign or malignant, a Bethesda 3 or 4, that is a perfect situation for those other molecular tests that I've described above.
Results: If it's a Bethesda 5 or 6 where you really think this is a cancer, that's the time to order Thyroid Guide PX.
Oliver Bathe: Currently, we ask the person doing the biopsy to take an extra pass with the needle to put it into our particular medium. Just like with other molecular tests, they all have their own special medium. Once you know that this is likely to be a thyroid cancer, that's the time to utilize that.
Test results
Oliver Bathe: Our goal is to get the results out within three weeks. I think once we get to higher volumes, then we'll be able to get it out much quicker.
Jen: When the patient gets their results, do they get a full report explaining the different subtypes?
Oliver Bathe: It does describe the outcomes that we expect with the other subtypes, so you have an idea of what the outcome is in comparison to the other situations. But, it really focuses on a description of the subtypes that patient has. And it's quite informative to the endocrinologist and the thyroid surgeon, because they're going to be needing to make these decisions together.
Costs and insurance coverage
Oliver Bathe: We are actively working on getting insurance coverage. As you know, we're a new test, so it will take some time to get coverage. In the meanwhile, we have a very aggressive rebate program. Our goal is really to ensure that this test is available to anyone. We have a graded system in terms of the size of the rebate. So people who are financially challenged will have a larger rebate. Sometimes, the testing will be free. Patients who don't have those challenges then will pay a little bit more. For somebody who is non-insured and doing well financially, they will pay a maximum of $1,260 at this time. That is the maximum that we expect patients to pay, but there are patients who will pay less, of course. We have a reimbursement navigator who will contact the patient and explore some of those reimbursement approaches, including payment plans and sizing up the rebate.
We really want to make it easy for patients and then they can make the final decision of whether to proceed with the test. The goal is to get the test ordered, our reimbursement navigator contacts the patient and then helps them to decide on whether they want to undergo the testing.
Jen: When we talk about the costs of treatment in our community, particularly for thermal ablation, we always try to help patients to think long term. Not just, what is this going to cost me today? Because you're not just thinking about your financial costs, you're thinking about the costs with your quality of life.
Ultimate cost savings from different treatment choices
Oliver Bathe: Compared to the standard of care treatment for PTC (surgery), there are some significant cost savings when you look at groups of patients. You can't really tell what's going to happen to an individual.
If your test stipulates that you require total thyroidectomy, then that hasn't really changed very much in terms of saving money. But if you choose, because of the test results, to do active surveillance, then you've avoided the cost of surgery. And, you’ve saved on any treatments of any results of the surgery. Similarly, if your decision is to do something more conservative, then you've saved money because of a less extensive surgery.
Peace of mind
Jen: We do have patients who come to our Save Your Thyroid community who decide to undergo surgery. They usually say they are glad that they looked into nonsurgical treatment options. While they may not be a candidate, they are glad they did their research, and they feel they are making the right decision for them. Even for those patients who do have this test and then they still undergo a total thyroidectomy, they will know they've made an informed decision.
Oliver Bathe: Yeah, I agree. Across cancer types, we know that people who do their own research and are involved with the decision making do better. And thyroid cancer is not an exception there.
We're always continuing to develop potential tools that would be beneficial using the same approach that we use for thyroid cancer. We're now developing tests for lung cancer, colorectal cancer, and head and neck cancer. Those are the next ones on the priority list. They're not readily available. I think we have to do a lot more research before we introduce those to the clinic, but we're always looking for new ways to refine treatment decisions in cancer patients.
Jen: This is a test that I really want to educate the ThyCa community about as well. Save Your Thyroid is predominantly patients with benign thyroid nodules, but the ThyCa community encompasses all of thyroid cancer. One way we collaborate a lot is when there's an overlap between our communities. Within that overlap, this test just falls right into that population of patients. And so I'm really excited that I learned about this at the ATA meeting this year.
Questions from the SYT community
Are all molecular tests the same? If not, how do I know which test is appropriate for me? Is this test more accurate than other molecular tests?
Answer: They're not all the same. The majority of tests that we use for molecular testing for thyroid nodules, is to determine whether a nodule is cancer or not. Examples of that include ThyroSeq, Affirma, ThyroMIR, and Thyroid Print. Each of those perform excellently. Our test is very different, because it is specifically meant for papillary thyroid cancer. It's a very specific test, but it's also built for high performance because it's been tested on more than 800 patients now.
In order to have this test, does there need to be a diagnosis of papillary thyroid cancer?
Answer: No, and that is one of the challenges in the treatment of thyroid cancer as a whole. Most of the time you know that it's going to be a papillary thyroid cancer because it's the most common type of thyroid cancer and it has a particular appearance to it under the microscope. But there is a small likelihood that it could be another kind of cancer called a follicular cancer and in that case, this test wouldn't be beneficial. But we've factored that in to that possibility. It really is for people who you think have papillary thyroid cancer.
Is there or will there be in the future testing like this for follicular thyroid cancer?
Answer: I’d certainly like there to be. I think the reason that we were successful with papillary thyroid cancer is because we had access to large numbers of samples. I think we need more molecular data on follicular cancers and then, we could start working on developing a test like that.
Oliver Bathe: Papillary and Follicular Carcinoma are well differentiated thyroid cancers. Anaplastic is a very different beast. It's completely de-differentiated and very aggressive. And then, you know, the treatment approaches are slightly different, follicular versus papillary, mostly because the follicular has a tendency to spread through the blood system as opposed to the lymphatic.
Jen: So with papillary, it tends to only spread to the lymph nodes in the neck and not outside of the neck. Follicular, you're saying, could spread to other organs in the body through the blood. There's a big difference there then about the potential for metastasis.
Should this molecular test be done before doing RFA or thermal ablation for thyroid cancer? Is it safe to do RFA on a nodule suspicious for papillary cancer that has never had molecular testing?
Answer: It is an opinion-based answer because, unfortunately, we don't have any long-term data right now for patients with thyroid cancer treated with radio frequency ablation. But, there are clinicians who are treating thyroid cancer that way. I think that's reasonable as long as you're collecting the data and ensuring that the outcomes are similar to surgery.
Do I think that this kind of testing is essential for that approach? Yes, I do. I think that it's really important when you're introducing a new technology like radio frequency ablation that you do everything possible to select the right patients for that kind of treatment. If you know that you are dealing with the lowest risk thyroid cancers, which is what Thyroid Guide PX is meant to do, then that's appropriate. My own opinion is if that it if you're going to conduct treatments like this, you should be using molecular testing to enable that selection.
Do the thyroid guide PX tests require that the FNA be ultrasound guided? Are they willing to receive a stale second batch FNA that has been sitting around for a few weeks while the first batch is being processed?
Answer: Optimally, you do want ultrasound guidance because you want to make sure that needle is going into the tumor and not into the neighboring thyroid gland. So, my advice would be to get ultrasound guidance for that. Regarding the older test samples: What we really want is for the clinician to take one pass with the needle, possibly two, and put it into our media. Put it into a refrigerator, do not freeze it, and keep it there for up to 10 to 14 days. Then, we could perform the testing after that. The medium is meant to keep the cells in good condition so that we can do our testing properly.
The goal of this podcast and blog
I seek to provide data, resources, and expert opinions on the topic of thyroid nodules, and make it accessible to patients. When I was first looking for thermal ablation treatment, everything that I read was physician-facing material. It was very hard for me to understand. This material is meant to help patients understand what's going on in their thyroid gland and what an important gland it is. If you can keep your thyroid intact, that's going to help you live a longer, healthier life, and preserve your quality of life. Thanks for reading this far today! — Jen
Learn more about Qualisure Diagnostics:
👉Email: admin@qualisuredx.com
Thyroid GuidePx® for Physicians
👉Learn more about Qualisure’s papillary thyroid cancer testing:
👉Learn more about papillary thyroid cancer:
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👉Follow Dr. Oliver Bathe on LinkedIn
Disclaimer: None of the statements made in this or any other video by "Its me Jen again" should be considered medical advice.
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