Results of Treatment of Toxic Goiter With Radioactive Iodine*

THIS is a report of our results in the treatment of hyperthyroidism with radioactive iodine, plus a review of the clinical results reported in the literature up to the present (April, 1952). Table 1 contains a complete list of all follow-up studies of a series of patients treated for hyperthyroidism with radioactive iodine. When there have been two or more reports from the same clinic, the latest or most complete is used. It is difficult to arrange different sets of statistics accurately under common headings and the necessary shifting of an investigator's case reports in order to tabulate them in common with those of another investigator creates many errors. These errors are not numerous enough, however, to destroy the validity of the final calculation. No two sets of authors attack the problem of the radiotherapeusis of hyperthyroidism in an identical manner. One group deliberately confines this form of therapy to a small number of patients in whom the risk of surgery is unduly hazardous or to those who have had recurrences following repeated thyroidectomies, whereas another group uses I131 in the treatment of practically all patients of all ages, with either toxic diffuse or toxic nodular goiter. Neither is there any uniformity in dosage. One group may give multiple small doses in an effort to avoid too high an incidence of hypothyroidism, whereas another aims as closely as possible at a satisfactory remission with one dose, without much regard for subsequent hypothyroidism. The total of cases treated and analyzed numbers 1,720.