Evaluation of treatment with 15 mCi of 131I to patients bearing toxic diffuse goiter (graves disease)

Full text: The multiple interferences of the physical and social environment on the people, represented especially for the lack of iodine, the basic chemical element for good functioning of the thyroid, in interior or raised regions; in situations of nutritional deficiency or excess of that chemical element absorbed through foods and or drugs; by stress and inadequate feeding to which they are submitted, when facing assumed social responsibilities; for the rural exodus in search of new chances in the great cities; and especially, the women, for the consequences of the continuous use of contraceptives; for greater sensitivity to the humoral and tumoral answers etc., if it becomes the greater target of the thyroid disease called Toxic Diffuse Goiter or Graves disease, as is verified in this report, the existence of about 4 women for each 1 man. However, the implemented sanitary actions for the treatment that such complex diseases, demand, are not satisfactory. The applied doses, on average, are not satisfying the necessities, according to the study carried out with 180 patients (38 males and 142 females), with an average age of (43.6 ± 12.6) years, varying from 15 to 70 years; an average thyroid mass of (37.4 ± 19.5) g, varying from 19.0 to 89.3 g; an average 24-hour uptake of 131I of (53.6 ± 20.3) %, varying from 20.5 88.1 %; that they had been submitted to in average radiotherapeutic activity of (15.0 ± 1.4) mCi, varying from 12 to 20 mCi; where the output was (41.1 ± 15.6) % and the rate of desistance reached (52.4 ± 15.3) %. A retrospective study on the radiotherapeutic efficiency, covering dozens of treatments and thousands of patients from dozens of countries, in physical, clinical and biokinetic situations of iodine uptake by he thyroid, on average, similar to ours showed that the most efficient average dose, compared with our averages of dosimetric parameters, was about 30.2-34.5 mCi, that is, 2.0-2.3 times bigger than that the applied here. The data obtained by questionnaire from 70 patients suffering from thyroid diseases, confirm by unanimity, how much social and emotional relationships interfered with their diseases. The facts related to the low rates of efficiency; drop out rates from the treatment; doses below the proved efficient averages from the cost benefit point of view; delay in getting and the diagnosis and the treatment; constrained ambient, economic and social relations etc.; point to the necessity for urgent re formularization of sanitary policies and radiotherapeutic planning for patients with Graves disease. (author)