B. Dederichs et al., THYROID VOLUME REDUCTION FOLLOWING RADIOI ODINE THERAPY IN PATIENTS WITH AUTONOMOUS GOITER AND GRAVES-DISEASE, Nuklearmedizin, 35(5), 1996, pp. 164-169
Aim: It is well known that radioiodine therapy (RITh) leads to a signi
ficant thyroid volume reduction (TVR). But until now only little data
has been presented due to the course of time and the extent of TVR. Me
thod: Therefore the data of 33 patients with Graves' disease IGD), 36
patients with multifocal (MAG) and 31 with solitary (SAG) autonomous g
oitre were analyzed retrospectively Results: All the patients showed a
highly significant (p <0.001) TVR, which continued up to 1 year after
RITh. Receiving equal effective radiation doses, the extent of TVR wa
s significantly greater for GD than for MAG. This difference developed
within six weeks up to 3 months after RITh. Conclusion: This observat
ion suggests that the underlying thyroid disease affects the therapeut
ic effect of RITh and may be partially explained by the total suppress
ion of non-autonomous thyroid tissue in AG at the time of RITh. In pat
ients with SAG with a 1.7 times higher effective radiation dose than i
n MAG relative TVR was about 1.6 times stronger in SAG than in MAG. Th
is demonstrates a direct relation between the effective radiation dose
and the extent of the TVR after RITh.