Japan Consortium for Juvenile Thyroid Cancer（JCJTC）
It has been long believed that early diagnosis and treatment is inevitable in the patients with cancer. However, recent studies have revealed that in children and adolescents, there exists thyroid cancer which grows rather quickly in the early stage of development, but stops growing afterward and does not harm the patient for life. It acts just like the rabbit taking a nap in the Aesop story. In some recent academic papers, such cancer is called juvenile thyroid cancer. Finding cancer that does not require treatment is called overdiagnosis. Overdiagnosis of thyroid cancer in the young is known to be extremely harmful by accompanying psychological and social disadvantages.
Since 2011, the prevalence of thyroid cancer has been increasing, especially among the young in Fukushima Prefecture. Most of these patients with thyroid cancer are likely to be overdiagnosed cases which happned to be diagosed in ultrasonographic screening . Immediate countermeasures are required, however, considering the past experiences, it is not always easy to take appropriate measures because the transmission of correct scientific information is often blocked due to various conflicts of interests, especially when overdiagnosis is occurred in a large-scale medical checkup.
In light of these situations, the Japan Consortium for Juvenile Thyroid Cancer (JCJTC) has been founded as a scientific and cross-society organization established by Japanese and international experts in 2020. This consortium aims to prevent the overdiagnosis of thyroid cancer in the young and check credibility of research data on juvenile thyroid cancer. The core members of this consortium are made up of members of various Japanese academic societies or institutions. Each member introduces their scientific views on juvenile thyroid cancer independently from the academic societies and institutions they belong to. By presenting recommendations and holding conferences based on the latest evidence, we aim to be a guide to the optimization of medical actions. Further, we will conduct research on juvenile thyroid cancer that is difficult to understand with the conventional concept of cancer. We hope that the activities of JCJTC will serve as a model case for suppressing the expansion of overdiagnosis that occurs at the national level.
Core Members
| Ei Ueno | Tsukuba International Breast Clinic |
|---|---|
| Akira Ohtsuru | Atomic Bomb Disease Institute, Nagasaki University |
| Kennichi Kakudo | Department of Pathology, Izumi City General Hospital |
| Tomotaka Sobue | Department of Social and Environmental Medicine, Osaka University Graduate School of Medicine |
| Toru Takano | Thyroid Center, Rinku General Medical Center |
| Shoichiro Tsugane | Graduate School of Public Health, International University of Health and Welfare |
| Yoh Hidaka | Department of Laboratory Medicine, Osaka University Graduate School of Medicine |
| Sanae Midorikawa | Department of Food and Nutritional Science, Miyagi Gakuin Women's University |
International Advisory Members
| Deborah H Oughton | Centre of Environmental Radioactivity, Norwegian University of Life Sciences | Norway |
|---|---|---|
| Wendy Rogers | Department of Philosophy and Department of Clinical Medicine, Macquarie University | Australia |
| Hanneke M van Santen | Pediatric Endocrinology, Wilhelmina Children's Hospital, Utrecht | Netherlands |
| Vicki J Schnadig | Department of Pathology, University of Texas Medical Branch | U.S.A. |