Newswise — Former secretary/COO of the American Thyroid Association (ATA), Richard T. Kloos, M.D., has been appointed senior medical director of Veracyte, a molecular diagnostics company. Dr. Kloos was Secretary/Chief Operating Officer of the American Thyroid Association (ATA) from 2007-2011, chaired the guidelines committee on Medullary Thyroid Cancer and was a member of the guidelines committee for Differentiated Thyroid Cancer. As Secretary/COO of the ATA he served as chairman of the ATA Board of Directors and on the ATA executive committee.
Dr. Kloos is currently a professor of medicine in the divisions of Endocrinology and Metabolism, and Nuclear Medicine at The Ohio State University (OSU) and attending physician at The OSU Comprehensive Cancer Center and co-director of The OSU Thyroid Cancer Unit.
Dr. Kloos remarked on the “value of active participation in the scientific and social life of the ATA. Service to the ATA has allowed me to develop and demonstrate skills that translated into many settings and have benefited me in my daily life with patients, academics, and towards my new career direction in industry. I would highly recommend that others become passionately involved in their professional societies. I am grateful for the many opportunities that the ATA has given me, and I look forward to continuing my active ATA participation.”
At Veracyte, Inc., a molecular diagnostics company pioneering the emerging field of molecular cytology, Dr. Kloos will lead all thyroid product medical efforts and educate the endocrinology community about the company’s first product, the Afirma® Thyroid FNA Analysis. Dr. Kloos expressed his enthusiasm for “this exciting technology that will benefit thyroid patients, while also reducing healthcare costs.”
Thyroid cancer is the fastest-growing cancer in the U.S., with an estimated 56,460 new cases expected in 2012, according to the American Cancer Society. An estimated 450,000 thyroid nodule FNAs – a minimally invasive procedure to extract cells for examination under a microscope – are performed in the U.S. each year to rule out cancer. Thyroid nodule FNAs are challenging to interpret, however, producing ambiguous results in up to 30 percent of cases. Current guidelines recommend that most of these patients undergo thyroid resection for a definitive diagnosis, given that thyroid cancer is highly treatable. Post-surgical results, however, show that most of these patients (70-80 percent) have benign conditions.………………………….The American Thyroid Association (ATA) is the leading worldwide organization dedicated to the advancement, understanding, prevention, diagnosis and treatment of thyroid disorders and thyroid cancer. ATA is an international individual membership organization with over 1,600 members from 43 countries around the world. Celebrating its 89th anniversary, ATA delivers its mission through several key endeavors: the publication of highly regarded monthly journals, THYROID, Clinical Thyroidology and Clinical Thyroidology for Patients; annual scientific meetings; biennial clinical and research symposia; research grant programs for young investigators, support of online professional, public and patient educational programs; and the development of guidelines for clinical management of thyroid disease. Visit www.thyroid.org for more information.##
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