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The Ablation of Normal Thyroid Tissue with Iodine 131

Department of Radiotherapy, Hammersmith Hospital and Postgraduate Medical School of London, London, W.12

This excerpt was created in the absence of an abstract.

Complete destruction or ablation of normal thyroid tissue may be readily accomplished by means of radioactive iodine. Thyroid ablation has been fairly extensively used in patients with cardiac disease who may benefit from a reduction in their basal metabolic rate. It is undoubtedly of value in severe angina pectoris and has been applied with some success in congestive cardiac failure (Blumgart, Freedberg and Kurland, 1955; Jaffe, Rosenfeld, Pobirs and Stuppy, 1955). In patients with thyroid carcinoma thyroid ablation is essential as a preliminary measure if the treatment of functioning thyroid metastases with radioiodine is to be effective. Surgical resection is the method of choice unless the primary tumour is inoperable or the patient otherwise unfit for surgery, in which case radioiodine provides an alternative method. Thyroid ablation of one lobe may also be recommended as an alternative to further surgery in patients who have had a hemithyroidectomy for a solitary nodule which on histological examination proves to be neoplastic.

Various procedures have been used for ablating the thyroid in cardiac disease, a common practice being to give several doses of ¹³¹I at weekly intervals. Although the quantities of ¹³¹I given by mouth and the initial concentration of ¹³¹I in the thyroid are usually specified there appears to be little information on the radiation dose actually delivered to the thyroid under these conditions.

Received for publication August 1, 1962.

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