Treatment for differentiated thyroid cancer historically has nearly always involved total thyroidectomy.

Increasingly, however, less-invasive options are being considered in some cases.

"Half the population have thyroid nodules, and 95 percent of those nodules are benign," explains Lindsay Bischoff, director of Vanderbilt University Medical Center's Thyroid Center.

"We want to shift our focus to treating the patient and not the disease."

She says some less-invasive measures are as effective and also come with less risk.