Technetium-99m (99mtc) and Iodine-123 (123i) in Comparison with Thyroid Ultrasonography in Differential Diagnosis of Saudi Patients with Graves’ Disease

Abstract

In thyroid autoimmune diseases diagnosis, there is growing evidence that thyroid ultrasonography (US) can be helpful without accurate differentiation of Graves’ disease GD from other autoimmune diseases. Using histopathological findings as a reference standard, this study aimed to determine the diagnostic accuracy of 99mTc and 123I in comparison with US for the differential diagnosis of GD in Saudi patients. Results demonstrated that thyroid scintigraphy using 99mTc (sensitivity=96.1 vs. 23.5%) and 123I (sensitivity=83.33 vs. 25%) was superior to US in detection of GD in Saudi patients. All GD patients detected by US were detected by both 99mTc and 123I scans, whereas, 99mTc (37/39) and 123I (14/18) scans detected many patients from GD cases that US failed to detect. This superiority was found regardless of gender and age particularly in 99mTc scan. In the same group of patients, both 99mTc and 123I scans had the same sensitivity (80%) (P=0.151). In conclusion, our study findings suggested that 99mTc and 123I thyroid scintigraphy scans could be used in the differential diagnosis of GD from other thyroiditis disorders.

Note:

Funding Information: This research was funded by the Deanship of Scientific Research at Princess Nourah bint Abdulrahman University, through the Research Funding Program, Grant No. (FRP-1444-33).

Conflict of Interests: I would like to inform that there is no conflict.

Ethical Approval: Research protocol ethical approval was obtained from the Institutional Review board (IRB), Princess Norah University, RB Log Number: 22-1060 .

Keywords: Thyroid imaging, grave's disease, 99mTc, 123I, scintillation Imaging