Papillary Thyroid Carcinoma Developments After Radioactive Iodine Treatment for Toxic Adenoma: A Case Report

Abstract

Radioiodine is an important radiopharmaceutical agent in nuclear medicine practice for the treatment of hyperthyroidism and differenciated thyroid cancer. One of the long term side effects of ionising radiation is the possibility of radiation induced malignancy. There are limited reports about malignancy after 131 I therapy for thyrotoxicosis. In this report, a case with papillary thyroid cancer after radioactive iodine (RAI) therapy for toxic thyroid nodule is presented. In this case, fine needle aspiration biopsy(FNAB) had not been done before RAI therapy and papillary carcinoma was detected four years later than the 444 MBq RAI therapy. The patient underwent bilateral total thyroidectomy and central neck dissection. After the surgery, the patient underwent 5550 MBq RAI for ablation. Summary, differentiated thyroid cancer can be found incidentally in toxic nodule or can be developed as a consequence of radioiodine therapy. FNAB must be performed for all the patients with hot or cold thyroid nodules before RAI therapy and all the patients taking RAI theraphy should be closely followed in terms of nodule growing and cancer development. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.4021/ jmc1459w