Assessment of the functional state of the thyroid gland in the early stages after radioiodine therapy

We discussed the issues of differential diagnosis of post-radiation destructive thyroiditis and relapse of Graves ' disease in the early stages (1-5 weeks) after radioiodine therapy. One of the research methods that allow assessing the functional state of the thyroid gland is thyroscintigraphy with the radiopharmaceutical 99mTc-Pertechnetat. However, in the early stages after treatment, an adequate interpretation of the results is complicated by the presence of residual fixation of 131I in the thyroid tissue. We present a new method for assessing the functional state of the thyroid gland in the first weeks after radioiodine therapy. The use of this method made it possible to conduct a differential diagnosis of recurrent thyrotoxicosis and destructive thyroiditis and to prescribe pathogenetically justified treatment to patients.