Related Experiment Video
Updated: Feb 24, 2026
An Orthotopic Mouse Model of Anaplastic Thyroid Carcinoma
Published on: April 17, 2013
99mTc-pertechnetate-avid metastases from differentiated thyroid cancer are prone to benefit from 131I therapy: A
1Department of Nuclear Medicine, Shanghai Jiao Tong University Affiliated Sixth People's Hospital Department of Nuclear Medicine, Shanghai Tenth People's Hospital, Tongji University Department of Nuclear Medicine, Shanghai Chest Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, People's Republic of China.
Abstract:
The aim of this study is to determine the contribution of neck and chest Tc-pertechnetate scan to the management of postoperative patients with suspicious metastatic differentiated thyroid cancer (DTC), particularly to the prediction of response to radioiodine (I) therapy. Just before I administration, a total of 184 postoperative DTC patients with stimulated serum thyroglobulin (ssTg) >10 ng/mL were enrolled to undergo neck and chest Tc-pertechnetate scan, which were directly compared with post-therapeutic I scan to determine the concordance of site and number of metastatic lesions. The percentage changes in ssTg between Tc-pertechnetate-avid group and Tc-pertechnetate-nonavid group were compared, and the response to I in both groups was analyzed according to the nature of Tc-pertechnetate avidity as well. The percentages of concordance between Tc-pertechnetate and I scan in detecting metastases were 65.7% and 26.0% in per-patient and per-site analyses with low unweighted kappa, respectively. Tc-pertechnetate scan led to a change in therapeutic decision making in 19/184 (10.3%) patients. In 72 patients with I-avid metastases, the ssTg in Tc-pertechnetate-avid group (n = 13) decreased significantly compared with that in Tc-pertechnetate-nonavid group (n = 59) (median: -81.56% vs -48.14%; Z = -4.276, P = .000). The difference of therapeutic response between Tc-pertechnetate-avid group and Tc-pertechnetate-nonavid group was statistically significant (χ = 8.4; P = .03). Although the consistency between Tc-pertechnetate scan before I administration and post-therapy I scan in detecting metastases is low, identifying metastases in postoperative DTC patients with elevated ssTg via Tc-pertechnetate scan prior to I therapy provides incremental value for therapeutic decision making. Notably, patients with Tc-pertechnetate-avid metastases may be more prone to benefit from I therapy than those with Tc-pertechnetate-nonavid metastases.
