‘I discovered cancer after warning from teacher in class’

It was another school day for medical student Gabriella Barboza. She and her classmates learned about physical examinations of the head and neck region.

At one point, the young woman was called by Professor Daniel Lichtenthaler to be used as a model of how a neck exam should be performed. “Other students had already been called. I was called when he explained the technique to palpate the thyroid”, recalls Gabriella.

As the teacher was taking the exam in front of the class, the student noticed something different in his reaction. “I believe he was afraid to speak there, but I noticed that something didn’t seem normal”, says the young woman. She says that later, at the end of the class, she questioned the teacher. “I asked if there was anything different while he was feeling his neck, he said: there’s something there, take a look.”

After this alert, she underwent tests and was diagnosed with a type of thyroid cancer.

She classifies that class, in mid-October 2020, as a fundamental moment for her health. “I think that if I hadn’t gone that day, maybe I wouldn’t have discovered the disease so soon, my diagnosis would have taken much longer and it could have been more serious”, says the student, now 22 years old.

The alert during class

The young woman, who was in the third semester of medicine, claims that she had no symptoms, much less had noticed any changes in her neck.

Lichtenthaler, who is a specialist in geriatrics and internal medicine, tells BBC News Brazil that he noticed that the student’s thyroid had a significant and asymmetrical increase. This reason led him to call it to be used as a model in the technical demo.

“As I recall, a first student used as an example had a small thyroid, which is normal. So I quickly looked at the necks of some students and Gabriella’s caught my attention”, says the doctor.

He noticed the enlargement of the gland when touching the young woman’s thyroid. “We were lucky that she presented the anatomical alteration right in the head and neck exam class,” says Lichtenthaler.

The teacher’s direction at the end of the class—to get her to see a doctor to find out what was behind that change—surprised Gabriella and intrigued her. “I’ve always been a very healthy person, even before that I had gone through medical consultations and had tests done a month before, but nothing abnormal was identified with me”, says the young woman.

The day after class, she went to see a gynecologist. “He evaluated it, said there was something and that it was better to investigate,” she says. The young woman underwent several tests the following week.

In late October, she was diagnosed with papillary thyroid carcinoma. “When I found out, the world collapsed. I kept thinking: I’m too young to face this. I cried a lot and didn’t want to believe it. It’s a moment when you see that things can end”, says the young woman.

Thyroid nodules are considered common and are often easily identified due to the prominent location of the gland, in the central area of ​​the neck. In many cases, according to doctors, the patient himself can feel this difference when touching this region of the body.

The good news is that about 95% of these lumps are benign. And if the patient is diagnosed with cancer, the chances of curing the disease in this region are very high — there are studies that estimate that about 97% of cases have positive results.

The guidance of specialists is that patients seek a doctor if they notice any changes in this area. The sooner there is a diagnosis, the greater the chances of cure and less invasive procedures to combat the health problem.

According to the National Cancer Institute (Inca), thyroid cancer is the most common in the head and neck region. Studies indicate that the disease affects three times more women than men.

The most common thyroid cancer is papillary carcinoma, as in Gabriella’s case. It usually develops slowly, but can progress to other areas of the neck. According to experts, the treatment is usually successful and there are few reports of deaths.

By the time Gabriella’s cancer was discovered, the disease had already progressed and had reached other areas of her neck and also a part of her esophagus. However, the doctors’ expectations were still very positive about the young woman’s recovery, as it is a cancer with a very high recovery rate.

Even with the positive outlook, the student was very apprehensive. “As I was very lay at the time, I thought it could be the worst case possible. When I saw that it had hit other parts, I thought: it must have spread all over. I felt like my life was hanging by a thread”, says Gabriella.

‘reborn’

In early November 2020, Gabriella began the procedures to treat the disease at a hospital in São Paulo (SP), where she lives. The first step was surgery to remove the thyroid and the tumor mass that had spread to other parts of her neck.

In January 2021, she had an iodine therapy session, a procedure indicated for this type of cancer in which the patient takes a drug with iodine to fight the remnants of the disease in the body.

The treatment was a success and she was considered cured in February 2021, as there were no more signs of the disease in her body. Because it is cancer, the student needs to maintain periodic follow-up through exams to assess health — currently, she undergoes biannual evaluations and no further evidence of the disease has been found.

When she learned of the cure, the student shared the news on her Instagram profile, through a photo in the hospital and a text. “After months of struggle, I want to record this remarkable moment in my life, which made me a better person and made me see the world in a different way,” he wrote in the publication made on February 4, 2021. reborn and now a new cycle begins”, he concluded. In the comments, many people celebrated her recovery.

Gabriella, who is currently in the middle of medical school, says that the professor’s warning during class and the period of cancer treatment were moments of great learning.

“I always wanted to be a doctor to take care of others and heal people, regardless of specialty. But after what I went through as a patient, I think the perspective changes”, she comments.

She points out that during the treatment she discovered that the cancer had appeared long before the professor’s observation, but it was not identified by any of the doctors with whom she had routine consultations before.

The student says she learned the importance of paying attention to every detail of the patient, in addition to listening to everything he says. “All that I experienced changed my history with medicine and made me grow not only personally, but also professionally,” she says.

Professor Daniel Lichtenthaler says he was surprised and worried to learn that the change he noticed in the young woman’s neck was a sign of cancer. “But once I learned that the treatment had been successful, I was very happy,” he says.