Pictured above:  Elizabeth Hesseltine, NP, Frank Worden, MD                                     Pictured above: Mousumi Banerjee, PhD, Megan Haymart, MD 

The goal of ThyCARE is to improve patient care through research. There are two teams committed to thyroid cancer clinical research:

1)    Thyroid cancer health services research. Dr. Haymart and the health services research team focus on research topics related to diagnosis, prognosis, management, and survivorship. The team's goal is to improve thyroid cancer care and communication. The health services research team has experience with large national cancer registries, population based studies, and survey studies.

2)    Thyroid cancer clinical trials. For over a decade, Dr. Worden has led the thyroid cancer clinical trials team at the University of Michigan. Clinical trials offer potential benefits to patients with advanced thyroid cancer. It is important for patients with advanced thyroid cancer to have treatment options readily available and to have a team of caregivers who are trained to manage these complex patients. Only through trials with novel therapeutics can we improve survival. 

Collaborators include: 

• endocrinologists
• oncologists
• surgeons
• biostatisticians
• health economists
• epidemiologists
• survey methodologists 

Topics that can be addressed with the research:

• The reason for the rise in thyroid cancer incidence
• The implications of the rise in thyroid cancer incidence
• Quality of care
• Variation in management
• The role of physicians and patients in treatment decisions
• Communication between physicians and patients
• Thyroid cancer outcomes
• Use of imaging in thyroid cancer
• Interventions to improve care
• Resource utilization
• Trial eligibility and enrollment
• Novel agents to treat advanced thyroid cancer
• Survivorship 

        Questions or Comments?  Please contact Brittany Gay