“Low but real” risk of myelodysplastic syndromes caused by thyroid cancer treatment

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07/04/23

Dr Mukherjee talks to ecancertv at ASH 2015 about a study looking at the risk of myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) in patients treated with radioactive iodine for thyroid cancer.

The study used a novel program to query all the Surveillance Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) registries in the USA to identify over 132,000 patients treated for thyroid cancer between 1973 and 2011. Of these 53% underwent surgery alone and 45% had surgery combined with radioactive iodine treatment. The remaining 2% had external beam radiotherapy followed by adjuvant radioactive iodine treatment.

Patients who were treated with radioactive iodine had a statistically significantly increased risk of developing MDS within the first 2 years of exposure versus those who underwent surgery alone. The respective relative risk of MDS was 5.8 versus 1.9. The risk for MDS dropped to baseline rates after 2 years but there was a trend to increase again after 12 years.

There is a low, but real risk of developing MDS following exposure to radioactive iodine for thyroid cancer, Dr Mukherjee observes. The reason for this is not known, but it is worth having a frank and free discussion with the patients to ensure they know about this potential risk of their thyroid treatment.