Radioiodine Phenographic Summary

This radioisotope is employed in medicine to monitor thyroid gland functioning to treat goitre, thyroid cancer, locate tumours of the brain and liver. Iodine-131 is used in investigations to trace the course of compounds in metabolism. Several iodine compounds are used as contrast mediums

The health care provider ordered blood work that included thyroid-stimulating hormone, triiodothyronine, thyroxine, and radioactive iodine uptake to confirm the diagnosis of hyperthyroidism. The labs returned with an elevated level of triiodothyronine and thyroxine, while the thyroid-stimulating hormone was decreased. There was also an

Follow up CT, MRI, or PET scans are employed to determine the size of the tumor, the extent of local invasion, and if distant metastasis has already occurred11. This is particularly important because, although all ATC cases are considered Stage IV cancers, the severity of metastasis dictates the course of treatment. Stage IVA cancers are limited to the thyroid and are often treated with surgical resection, if possible. This is followed by radiotherapy and chemotherapy9,11. For most patients, however, the cancer is unresectable. As such, clinicians typically shift their focus towards a combination of radiation therapy, chemotherapy, and palliative care to improve the quality of

A fine needle aspiration (FNA) is a form of biopsy usually performed if a nodule is found to determine if it's benign or malignant. Radionuclide scanning (using a radioactive isotope given orally to measure the amount of radioactive iodine the nodule concentrates) can also be performed to determine whether the lump is 'hot' or 'cold.' If a nodule is cold, it will not take up the radioactive material. When scanned, the cold nodule areas will show up lighter than normal tissue or even as totally blank areas. This is due to the decreased activity in that area of the thyroid (it's hypoactive, or not producing much thyroid hormone). A nodule that is cold is more likely to be a cancerous one, though the majority of them still turn out to be

What is thyroid cancer, and is it dangerous? To answer this one must first know the function of the thyroid. A thyroid is a gland at the front of the neck right under the sound box, which secretes hormones that affect heart rate, body temperature and weight. It also makes calcitonin, which keeps a healthy level of calcium in the body. Thyroids are made up of tissue, when the cells that make up the tissue of the thyroid gland start to form unnecessarily, and cells that are damaged are not killed, tumors called nodules form on the thyroid thus resulting in cancer. Around 45,000 women and 15,000 men were diagnosed with thyroid cancer in 2013 alone, most of whom were above the age of 45. However getting thyroid cancer is not the worst thing in the world as it is treatable but there should still be more investment and research put into this disease so that less risky methods of taking out the cancer can be found.

Some of these diagnoses include a physical exam, blood sample, radioactive iodine uptake and ultrasound1. With a physical exam, the doctor will check the patient’s eyes to see if they are bulging out or the area around the eye looks enlarged. They well check to see if the thyroid gland is abnormally large and because of its association with increase metabolism, the doctor will check the pulse and blood pressure of the patient and look for signs of tremors which are involuntary quivering movements1. Only in severe cases will a blood test detect TSI in the bloodstream, if TSI does not show up in a patient’s blood, then a radioactive iodine may be conducted. This is because the thyroid intakes iodine from the bloodstream and uses that iodine in order to make thyroid hormones so the radioactive iodine is inserted in the bloodstream and is collected by the thyroid gland, is the thyroid gland collects large amounts of this radioactive iodine, then the patient may have Graves’ disease3. If the patient is pregnant, that patient cannot undergo radioactive treatment because the radioactive iodine could harm the fetus’ thyroid and can be passed from the mother to the child in breast milk if the mother is breastfeeding4. An ultrasound can use the high-frequency waves to produce images of structures inside the body and can show if the thyroid gland is enlarged or

The most commonly used radio tracer for thyroid imaging are TC99m(pertechnetate) , iodine-123 and iodine-131. Thyroid evaluation is one of the most frequently performed nuclear medicine procedure.The equipment use to test for the radioactivity is the gamma probe and is the only device used to test for graves disease. (*3)This device is a handheld device with a Geiger-muller tube, or or scintillation counter, for intraoperative use following interstitial injection of a radionuclide, to locate regional lymph nodes by their radioactivity It is used primarily for sentinel lymph node mapping and parathyroid surgery. The Gamma Probe is also used for RSL (Radioactive Seed Localization), to locate small and non-palpable breast lesions. The sentinel node market experienced high growth in the early and mid 90's starting with melanoma sentinel node surgical search and breast cancer sentinel node staging; both are currently considered standards of care. Most surgeons propose node staging after a positive breast biopsy. New applications are being developed for parathyroid direct detection and intra-operative detection of cancerous tissue using tumor-seeking radiopharmaceuticals. Parathyroid detection is growing fast, while the intraoperative use of gamma probes for direct tumor detection is just emerging. Canberra is one of the manufactures of a gamma probe also know as a GP series- Geiger muller detractors A gamma probe is A pair of rugged halogen-quenched GM detectors serves as the basic detection elements in the GP Series detectors used for wide range gamma radiation measurement. The way this device works is the signal from the gamma probe with Geiger-muller tube and the voltage power supply go to the preamplifier to another amplifier and threshold control. This signal is split one side goes to the rate meter and audio circuit, the other signal goes to the scaler and display driver circuitry which is

Most thyroid tumors can be readily diagnosed using histopathologic criteria, which allow the pathologist to differentiate benign from malignant lesions and guarantee an accurate classification for the majority of the variants of carcinomas derived from follicular epithelial cells. However, in most cases, the pathologist is confronted with thyroid lesions in which the distinction between benign and malignant can be quite subtle. The decision favoring one or another has clinical consequences and implies different modalities of treatment. For this reason, the approach to these challenging tumors should include ancillary techniques, immunohistochemistry and molecular profiling, that can improve the standard morphologic assessment (3).

In figure 1.1, a patient in her 20s is being seen for a sensation of fullness in her neck. The patient had further thyroid testing through ultrasound and other diagnostic tests. Even though she felt normal and her nodules were smaller than the recommended 1.5cm or above, she was told she might have an overactive thyroid by the physician and the patient was given radioactive iodine. The radioactive iodine does the same job as chemotherapy where it wipes out healthy cells along with cancerous cells leading to low or no thyroid function. When the patient came back for a follow up she complained of not feeling the same before she

99mTc-sestamibi is used as a radiotracer, but it is not truly specific to parathyroid tissue; it also accumulates in salivary, thyroid, and cardiac tissues. For intraoperative gamma detection, patients are injected intravenously with a low dose of 10 mCi 99mTc-sestamibi approximately 1 to 2 hours before operation. For patients who have previously

Iodine 123 is a substance that is used to see where any thyroid tumours are in the body. Both thyroid cancer and thyroid tissue trap iodine. This helps us find where there is active thyroid cancer. This procedure is called a diagnostic thyroid cancer survey. If thyroid cancer is found during your survey, you may have it treated with a dose of a radioactive iodine called Iodine 131. This is called a therapeutic dose.

At this time, it is not clear how much diagnostic radiation is contributing to the increase in thyroid cancer cases. It is possible that the increase in the diagnosis of thyroid cancer can be attributed to a greater rate of detection by use of ultrasonography and fine needle aspiration3. The thyroid tissue itself is among the tissues that are less sensitive to radiation, however, thyroid cancer is still such a concern because the thyroid is so superficial in the body1 (77). “Even doses as small as 50–100 mGy have been associated with an increased risk of thyroid malignancy in children, with a

Prior to the physical examination of the thyroid gland the examiner should as about any recent infections or tenderness in the neck (Jarvis, 2015). Ask if there have been any lumps or swelling noted in the neck (Jarvis, 2015). You would ask if there has been a history of thyroid problems and if so how has it been treated in the past (Jarvis, 2015). And lastly ask if there has ever been any surgical procedures or irradiation of the neck or neck region (Jarvis,

Medullary thyroid carcinoma: This type of thyroid cancer occurs in about 4% of the population, develops from the C cells of the thyroid gland1. The most concerning aspect of this cancer is the fact that by the time it is diagnosed, it has spread to lymph nodes, lungs, liver, or the bones1. Medullary thyroid cancers (MTC) cause the patient’s body to release too much calcitonin and a protein called carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) into the blood1. MTC also does not absorb radioactive iodine that would be helpful in its treatment and to see if it had metastasized. The prognosis is much worse for this type of cancer than the previously discussed differentiated types. The two types of MTC are Sporadic MTC, which only impacts one thyroid lobe through a somatic mutation and is not inherited, and Familial MTC, which is an inherited cancer that is caused by a germ-line mutation1. In addition, these patients usually have cancer in several areas of both

Thyroid cancer is one of the fastest growing forms of cancer. Although the mortality rate of thyroid cancer is low in comparison to other types of cancer, it has quickly become much more common in the past 25 years. Currently it is the fourth most prominent form of cancer in women (Cancer Care Ontario 2010). Thyroid cancer is the most common form of endocrine cancer with a mortality rate of roughly 0.5 cases per 100,000 (Pellegriti et al. 2013). It was estimated that 6000 Canadians will be diagnosed with thyroid cancer in 2014, from which 76% are