Financial Implication of Radioactive Iodine Therapy for Early-Stage Papillary Thyroid Cancer

The aim of this study was to evaluate disease-specific survival and cost related to radioactive iodine therapy (RAI) utilization in patients with early-stage papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC).

This was a retrospective cohort study using the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) database, 2004-2012.

A total of 38,374 patients with PTC were identified. Of those, 56.3% had adjuvant RAI. RAI administration was not associated with a survival advantage in patients with PTC stage I (hazard ratio [HR] 1.26, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.11, 14.54; p = 0.85) or stage II (HR 0.50, 95% CI 0.05, 4.88; p = 0.55). Patients with PTC stage III who underwent adjuvant RAI had an improved survival (HR 0.30, 95% CI 0.10, 0.91; p = 0.033). In 2012, RAI was used in 45.5% of patients with stage I and in 71.4% of patients with stage II. The total expenditure on adjuvant RAI for PTC stage I throughout the study period was estimated to be USD 82.3 million with an annual average of USD 9.1 (±2.0) million/year. If the decline rate in the utilization of RAI continued, the model projected that the annual expenditure would decrease by USD 0.14 million/year.

There is a high prevalence of adjuvant RAI utilization for early-stage PTC that is causing financial burden on the health system with no evidence of survival benefit.