Help please

Be brave

good day guys ... I've got thyroid cancer ( papillary ) and a total thyroid surgery was done to me on 12-Dec-2013, my thyroif was removed and three lymph tissues were removed ( only one was involved ) and because of the situation of my country is unstable I was given an appointment for RAI ( radioactive iodine ) dose in 17th-march 2013 and i wad told to stop taking the thyroxine one month before the RAI as you know gentlemen, during the period till the RAI they found some other lymph nodes and they are suspicious ... my question is that: do you think those lymph nodes will be killed by the RAI dose or shall make another surgery? and am i in danger? 

galinbakersfield

Should be….

If those lymph nodes happen to be "infected" by thyroid cancer then yes, theoretically the RAI should kill those cells. The RAI will be taken up where ever the "thryoid cancer" cells are at in your body. 

alapah

RAI

RAI is potentially taken up by all thyroid cells. It doesn't single out cancerous cells. Thyroid cells take up iodine and when they take up radioactive iodine they typically die. The idea is to use RAI to get rid of as many remaining thyroid cells as possible to help lower the risk of recurrence.

i have been told by my doctors that thryoid cancer cells within lymph nodes may not take up RAI as well as cells outside of lymph nodes. Often surgery is the best way to deal with thyroid cancer in lymph nodes. There are some institutions that perform a procedure called alcohol ablation where they inject a solution directly into infected lymph nodes to kill the thyroid cancer. It cannot be done for all cases, for example, if the lymph node is in a difficult to reach place. The Mayo Clinic website has a bit of explanation about this procedure.