Found out this weekend that my uncle has thyroid cancer. Thankfully, the prognosis is very good – he’s having surgery this week to remove his thyroid (no big deal, since he’s severely hypothyrodic and the gland doesn’t work anyway), and they may follow up with some radiation treatments, but the doctors seem confident that will be the end of it.
I’m wondering, though – my uncle used to smoke for 38 years, but quit more than 10 years ago. (His wife quit at the same time, but sadly, she died of lung cancer five years ago…that sucked.) Since it’s been such a long time since he quit smoking, would this be considered a smoking-related illness? Or is it more likely to be related to his previous thyroid problems?