Thallium‐201‐chloride thyroid scintigraphy to evaluate benign and/or malignant nodules usefulness of the delayed scan

The purpose of this study is to evaluate benign and/or malignant thyroid tumors with /sup 201/Tl thyroid scan. Researchers studied 76 cases of histologically verified thyroid tumors, all seen as cold nodules on the /sup 123/I thyroid scan. /sup 201/Tl thyroid scan was performed 5-15 minutes (early scan) and 3-5 hours (delayed scan) after intravenous administration of 1.5-2.0 mCi of /sup 201/Tl. In 35 (94.6%) of 36 malignant tumors (anaplastic carcinoma, six; papillary carcinoma 23; follicular carcinoma, five; epidermoid carcinoma, one; malignant lymphoma, 1) /sup 201/Tl accumulated in the cold nodule of the /sup 123/I thyroid scan on both early and delayed scans. On the other hand, the delayed /sup 201/Tl scan was negative in 35 out of 39 (89.7%) benign tumors. Employing early and delayed /sup 201/Tl scans, researchers were able to differentiate most malignant thyroid tumors from those which were benign. False-negative and -positive cases are discussed.