# TSH suppression

Source: https://onco.cc/terms/tsh-suppression/  
OnCo record `tsh-suppression` (Term). Data CC BY-NC 4.0, attribute "Data from OnCo (onco.cc)"; commercial use needs a licence.

## TL;DR

Giving slightly more thyroid hormone than the body needs after thyroid cancer surgery, to switch off the pituitary signal that could feed leftover cancer cells.

## Summary

TSH suppression is the practice of giving slightly more levothyroxine than the body needs after thyroid cancer surgery, so that TSH stays below the normal range and the pituitary signal that could feed leftover cancer cells is switched off. The degree of suppression is tailored to recurrence risk, with low-risk differentiated thyroid cancer needing the least. Long-term over-suppression causes bone loss and atrial fibrillation, so guidelines now recommend a normal-range TSH for low-risk patients after a few years. Readers meet the term on the thyroid cancer page, and it is linked from the survivorship bottleneck because it is a long-term treatment whose late effects are easily neglected.

## Fields

- Kind: Term
- Last checked: 2026-09-07

## Sources

- Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thyroid-stimulating_hormone
- Haugen et al., 2015 American Thyroid Association management guidelines for thyroid nodules and differentiated thyroid cancer (Thyroid 2016): https://doi.org/10.1089/thy.2015.0020

## Connected records

- cancers: [Thyroid cancer](https://onco.cc/cancers/thyroid/)
- terms: [Low-risk differentiated thyroid cancer (ATA risk)](https://onco.cc/terms/low-risk-dtc/)
- bottlenecks: [Survivorship and late effects are neglected](https://onco.cc/bottlenecks/b-survivorship/)

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JSON: https://onco.cc/api/v1/entities/tsh-suppression.json