Can we safely reduce the administration of 131-iodine in patients with differentiated thyroid cancer? – experience of the Brugmann hospital in Brussels

Table 1 Patients’ characteristics at inclusion

Parameters	Group 1 (%)	Group 2 (%)	P value
Number of patients	78 (57.4%)	58 (42.6%)	P value
Gender
- female	63 (80.8%)	42 (72.4%)	0.30
- male	15 (19,2%)	16 (27.6%)
Mean ± SD age at diagnosis (years)	50.3 ± 14.25	46.8 ± 15.6	0.42
Histology
- papillary	62 (79.5%)	44 (75.9%)	0.29
- papillary follicular variant	6 (7.7%)	6 (10.3%)
- follicular	10 (12.8%)	8 (13.8%)
TNM classification
- I	58 (74.4%)	48 (82.7%)	0.38
- II	4 (5.1%)	5 (8.6%)
- III	11 (19.0%)	4 (6.9%)
- IVa	4 (6.9%)	0
- IVb	0	0
- IVc^a	1 (1.3%)	1 (1.7%)
ATA-recurrence risk stratification^b
- low-risk	33 (42.3%)	18 (31.0%)	0.38
- intermediate-risk	30 (38.5%)	28 (48.3%)
- high-risk	15 (19.2%)	12 (20.7%)
Median (range) duration of hospital stay (days)	3 (2–10)	1.5 (1–3)	< 0.001
Side effects (n)	Constipation (10)	0	< 0.001
	Headache (2)
	Cervical pain (3)
Response to the therapy
- complete response	70 (90.9%)	55 (96.5%)	0.20
- biochemical incomplete response	2 (2.6%)	2 (3.5%)
- structural incomplete response	3 (3.9%)	0
- indeterminate response	2 (2.6%)	0

^a patients with distant metastases were excluded for the analysis of the results
^blow-risk: intrathyroidal DTC, pT1a, clinical N0 or ≤ 5 pathologic N1 micrometastases,M0; intermediate-risk: pT1b, pT2, aggressive histology, minor extrathyroidal extension, vascular invasion, or > 5 involved lymph nodes (0.2–3 cm), M0; high-risk: pT3, pT4, gross extrathyroidal extension, incomplete tumor resection, distant metastases, or lymph node > 3 cm,

ISSN: 1756-6614