What is the survival rate for patients with thyroid cancer?

As of May 2014, the five-year survival rate for medullary, follicular and papillary thyroid cancers that have not spread past the thyroid is nearly 100 percent, according to Cancer.Net. The survival rate for thyroid cancer that has spread past the lymph nodes is around 98 percent.

Thyroid cancer is one of the most treatable types of cancers, especially when diagnosed before it metastasizes to other areas of the body, notes Cancer.Net. However, when it spreads beyond the thyroid and lymph nodes, the five-year survival rate for thyroid cancer plummets to just 55 percent. In women, thyroid cancer is the fifth most diagnosed form of cancer in the United States.