Bone Metastases of Differentiated Thyroid Cancer: The Importance of Early Diagnosis and 131I Therapy on Prognosis

摘要

Given such poor prognosis, the use of 131I therapy has been questioned (2). However, it might well be that poor prognosis of bone metastases can be overcome if 131I therapy is delivered at an early stage, when tumor burden is small, as previously demonstrated for pulmonary metastases (3-5).A review of a large series of patients showed that only rarely were bone metastases diagnosed at an early stage. Among 109 patients with bone metastases reported by Bernier et al., only 4 had both radioiodine uptake and a negative standard radiography examination (i). Similarly, Durante et al. reported that only 8 of 115 patients had negative radiography findings at presentation (5)