If a radioiodine tablet is harmless to the patient why do others need to be protected from the patient's radioactivity?

[swatson]

[cjrsquared]

Radioactive iodine is not harmless it destroys thyroid cells and would damage a foetus if the patient was pregnant. It can also damage other cells especially in the salivary glands. It also very very slightly increases your risk of developing a second primary cancer, the consensus seems to be that is equivalent to the increased risks from 2 or 3 full body CT scans. So basically the benefits to the patient outweigh any potential risks.

I'm due to have radioactive iodine on the 28th for cancer so have been researching current evidence.

Good luck with any treatment.

[swatson in reply to cjrsquared]

Thank you, cjrsquared. The information is useful. I was wondering why my doctors assured me that the procedure had been found safe over 40 years of use, and yet the surely much smaller degree of radiation emitted by my body should be so dangerous.

I hope your treatment goes well. Very best wishes

[helvella Administrator Thyroid UK]

Absolutely it is not harmless. It is, like so many things, a balance of risks. There is risk from taking carbimazole or propylthiouracil on a long-term basis. There is a risk from over- or under-treating with either anti-thyroid medicine. There is risk from not treating Graves (or any other form of hyperthyroidism). There is risk from cancers.

There is evidence that the precise dose of radio-active iodine is important with both high and low doses causing problems. It is partly the simple fact that low doses can cause issues that makes it important to keep away from others in the period after treatment.

Another aspect is that a patient will have the treatment once (usually). Medical staff involved, if they did not take precautions, could end up having nearly continuous exposure - a very different prospect. And young people are likely worse affected than adults, hence taking extra care to avoid children.

Rod

[swatson in reply to helvella]

Thanks, Rod. The radiation must be extremely small. What sort of issues has exposure to this degree to adults been found to cause? I can see that it's best to stay away from young children and pregnant women just to be on the safe side I intend to follow all the other guidelines, but I don't understand why they have been formulated. Is there somewhere I can find more information?

[Clutter]

The nuclear physicist said by the time I left quarantine I wouldn't expose others to any more than the background radiation we're all exposed to daily but the precautions are to protect us from what we don't know/understand today against what we might discover is damaging 30 years down the line.

[nightingale-56]

Can't believe that in 1977 I had a Radioactive Iodine Uptake Test over 3 days and was still allowed into a Special Care Baby Unit. Does anyone know if this test was quite safe to be around other people, especially small babies. Janet.