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Does 131I Radioactivity Interfere with Thyroglobulin Measurement in Patients Undergoing Radioactive Iodine Therapy with Recombinant Human TSH?

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Abstract

Objectives

Recombinant human thyroid-stimulating hormone (rhTSH) is widely used in radioactive iodine therapy (RIT) to avoid side effects caused by hypothyroidism during the therapy. Owing to RIT with rhTSH, serum thyroglobulin (Tg) is measured with high 131I concentrations. It is of concern that the relatively high energy of 131I could interfere with Tg measurement using the immunoradiometric assay (IRMA). We investigated the effect of 131I administration on Tg measurement with IRMA after RIT.

Methods

A total of 67 patients with thyroid cancer were analysed retrospectively. All patients had undergone rhTSH stimulation for RIT. The patients’ sera were sampled 2 days after 131I administration and divided into two portions: for Tg measurements on days 2 and 32 after 131I administration. The count per minute (CPM) of whole serum (200 μl) was also measured at each time point. Student’s paired t-test and Pearson’s correlation analyses were performed for statistical analysis.

Results

Serum Tg levels were significantly concordant between days 2 and 32, irrespective of the serum CPM. Subgroup analysis was performed by classification based on the 131I dose. No difference was noted between the results of the two groups.

Conclusions

IRMA using 125I did not show interference from 131I in the serum of patients stimulated by rhTSH.

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Declaration of Interest

The authors fully declare any financial or other potential conflict of interest.

Conflict of Interest

Sohyun Park, Ji-In Bang, Ho-Young Lee, and Sang-Eun Kim declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Nuclear Medicine, Seoul National University Bundang Hospital, 173-82, Gumi-ro, Bundang-gu, Seongnam-si, Gyeonggi-do, 463-707, Republic of Korea

    Sohyun Park, Ji-In Bang, Ho-Young Lee & Sang-Eun Kim

  2. Department of Nuclear Medicine, Seoul National University College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea

    Sohyun Park, Ji-In Bang, Ho-Young Lee & Sang-Eun Kim

  3. Laboratory of Molecular Imaging and Therapy of Cancer Research Institute, Seoul National University College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea

    Ho-Young Lee

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  1. Sohyun Park
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  2. Ji-In Bang
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Correspondence to Ho-Young Lee.

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Park, S., Bang, JI., Lee, HY. et al. Does 131I Radioactivity Interfere with Thyroglobulin Measurement in Patients Undergoing Radioactive Iodine Therapy with Recombinant Human TSH?. Nucl Med Mol Imaging 49, 122–126 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13139-014-0317-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13139-014-0317-x

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