OBJECTIVE: To determine the stunning effect of a tracer dose of 5mCi iodine-131. PATIENTS AND METHODS: We retrospectively analyzed 145 patients who received the first ablative treatment at our service. Patients were divided according to disease status determined upon post-treatment scanning (101 patients with thyroid remnants and 44 with pulmonary metastases) and whole-body scanning before ablation (performed on 69 individuals). All patients with thyroid remnants were treated with an ablative dose of 100mCi and those with metastases received 200mCi. RESULTS: In patients with remnants only (n= 41) or metastases (n= 28) submitted to diagnostic scanning, uptake was found to be apparently increased in most patientscases (71 and 73%, respectively) 7 days after therapy, while reduced uptake (visual) was not observed in any patient. The efficacy of ablation was similar in the groups submitted or not to diagnostic scanning: 71 and 80% in patients without metastases (p= 0.28), respectively, and 43 and 50% in those with pulmonary involvement (p= 0.64). CONCLUSION: The present results indicate that diagnostic scanning using a 5mCi iodine-131 dose does not interfere with uptake of the ablative dose or with treatment efficacy when ablation is performed within 72h.
Scanning; Stunning; Thyroid carcinoma