TREATMENT OF THYROID CANCER METASTASES WITH TSH AND I131DURING THYROID HORMONE MEDICATION*

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
THIS report consists of a review of 50 cases of cancer of the thyroid observed during the last five years. In 13 of these, euthyroidism has been maintained by medication with desiccated thyroid or sodium-Zthyroxine (Baxter). An increased retention of radioactive iodine under the influence of TSH was obtained in 4 of these 13 cases. The demonstration that the pituitary hormone could induce increased uptake of radioactive iodine during thyroxine medication has been made in normal medical students (unpublished data). Exogenous thyroid hormone medication depresses endogenous thyrotropic secretion. The usual management of thyroid cancer is to anticipate the beneficial effect of profound hypothyroidism in such patients (1). This effect is an increased TSH production by the pituitary, causing a chronic stimulation of the tumor and/or metastases that will result in an increased uptake of the isotope. If such an improved uptake could be induced by parenteral TSH during the pituitary suppression accomplished by thyroid hormone medication, the same therapeutic advantage would be gained with the desired reduction in rate of growth of the tumor over long periods of time. Thus the hypothesis is suggested that, by suppression of the endogenous TSH, there will be a tendency to retard the growth of the malignancy and the occurrence of metastases.

This publication has 2 references indexed in Scilit: