Clinical Outcomes Following Empiric Radioiodine Therapy in Patients with Structurally Identifiable Metastatic Follicular Cell–Derived Thyroid Carcinoma with Negative Diagnostic But Positive Post-Therapy ¹³¹ I Whole-Body Scans

Abstract

While 44% of patients with the DxWBS-negative/post-therapy scan-positive macroscopic distant metastasis will have stable cross-sectional imaging after RAI remnant ablation, the other 56% will demonstrate structural disease progression that cannot be effectively treated with repeated empiric RAI activities. Furthermore, the high disease-specific mortality rate seen within the first few years of remnant ablation in this small subset of patients with persistent progressive disease despite a positive post-therapy RAI scan argues that treatments other than repeated empiric RAI dosing be strongly considered.