Associating radioiodine therapy in hyperthyroidism with cancer mortality: robust or random results of a statistical analysis?

Associating radioiodine therapy in hyperthyroidism with cancer mortality: robust or random results of a statistical analysis? Hell J Nucl Med. 2020 Jan-Apr;23(1):94-95 Authors: Iakovou I, Giannoula E, Chatzipavlidou V, Sachpekidis C Abstract Dear Editor, Recently, Kitahara et al. (2019) published an article in JAMA Internal Medicine entitled "Association of radioactive iodine treatment with cancer mortality in patients with hyperthyroidism". This publication was based on organ dosimetry calculations from 18,805 patients with hyperthyroidism treated with radioiodine treatment (RAI) followed for nearly 7 decades. The results of the work suggest that solid cancer mortality increases in hyperthyroid patients treated with RAI, with greater absorbed doses to exposed organs being associated with increased risk of death. As expected, these -undoubtedly interesting- findings have raised serious concerns in both physicians and patients regarding the safety profile of RAI. Driven by this, we aim to critically read the article and highlight some of the limitations of the study. First of all, the authors provide data on the association of RAI with cancer mortality and not with cancer incidence, which may be an interesting approach, but constitutes at the same time a weakness of the study. The authors' choice to investigate RAI as a progression and not as an actual risk factor for the onset of malignancies in hyperthyroid patients may be interpret...
Source: Hellenic Journal of Nuclear Medicine - Category: Nuclear Medicine Tags: Hell J Nucl Med Source Type: research