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Answer to Question #8606 Submitted to "Ask the Experts"Category: Nuclear Medicine Patient Issues — Therapeutic Nuclear Medicine The following question was answered by an expert in the appropriate field: Q
How many times can a dose of iodine-131 be given to a person? Are there limits as to how much and the number of times a dose may be given, both for persons with and without their thyroid?
A
This morning I gave a lecture about thyroid therapy with iodine-131 at the University of California, Los Angeles, and amongst other things addressed your very question. Many years ago, I think in the 1950s, someone wrote a paper about two patients who received more than 1,000 mCi iodine-131 and who got leukemia. For decades after that, the urban myth was that you couldn't safely give more than 1,000 mCi (it didn't matter how many doses were given—just the total mCi mattered). But as years went by, physicians occasionally went beyond the 1,000 mCi limit, and no leukemia was seen. So, at present, I think that if there is thyroid tissue present that takes up iodine-131, it pays to give iodine-131 to burn out the thyroid. This is true even if the total dose is over 1,000 mCi. I think that treating the cancer that you have is more important than worrying about one you might create. Chemotherapy agents and standard external beam radiation therapy can also produce cancer, but they successfully treat many, many more cancers than they cause. While it is conceivable that very high dose totals of iodine-131 could produce a cancer, treating a real cancer is much more important.Carol S. Marcus, PhD, MD Professor of Radiation Oncology and of Radiological Sciences, UCLA
Answer posted on 19 October 2009. The information and material posted on this Web site is intended as general reference information only. Specific facts and circumstances may alter the concepts and applications of materials and information described herein. The information provided is not a substitute for professional advice and should not be relied upon in the absence of such professional advice specific to whatever facts and circumstances are presented in any given situation. Answers are correct at the time they are posted on the Web site. Be advised that over time, some requirements could change, new data could be made available, or Internet links could change. For answers that have been posted for several months or longer, please check the current status of the posted information prior to using the responses for specific applications.
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