For thyroid cancer patients, estimations of whole body and bone marrow radiation dose are also made as the limiting factor for large therapeutic administrations of radioiodine. Such information is correlated with the patient's initial response as well as long term outcome.
Other thyroid cancer studies being done collaboratively entail an evaluation of the use of recombinant TSH in the treatment of thyroid cancer in the hopes that this agent will allow the elimination of the extended period of thyroid hormone withdrawal and resultant hypothyroidism currently required to produce the elevated TSH necessary to induce uptake in metastases for treatment.
Radiation effects on the thyroid have been a major interest. Dr. Becker is Chairman of the National Cancer Institute's working group on the effects of fallout on the population around Chernobyl. This invovles a number of epidemiologic studies in collaboration with Byelarussian and Ukrainian scientists to determine the effect of fallout radiation upon children and adults in fallout and control areas along with extensive efforts to reconstruct delivered radiation doses. To date there has been a significant number (over 250) of thyroid cancers detected in young children in Byelarus and an extensive epidemiologic study cosponsored by the National Cancer Institute, the United States Department of Energy, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Ministry of Health of Byelarus is currently underway.
A number of collaborative radionuclide imaging studies are under way with a variety of protocols for evaluation of the usefulness of various monoclonal antibodies labeled with different radionuclides as both diagnostic and therapeutic agents. These are all done collaboratively with various investigators in the Medical center as well as with a variety of commercial pharmaceutical sources of these agents.
Interest continues in attempts to determine the etiology of feline hyperthyroidism, a new disease which is now the most common endocrinologic disorder in cats. Studies to date with various collaborators have concluded that the disorder is not autoimmune in origin as is Graves' hyperthyroidism but analogous to toxic nodular goiter in man. Epidemiologic studies of distribution and demographic factors are under way.
Maxon, H.R., Thomas, S.R., Becker, D.V., Book, S.A., and Buncher, C.R. (1985) Induction of Thyroid Cancer by Ionizing Radiation. In National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements, NCRP Report No. 80.
Becker, D.V., Zanzonico, P.B., Hurley, J.R., Kusic, Z., Sanderson, L., Tsen, O., and Straus, A. (1991) Treatment of Hyperthyroidism with 131-I: Continuation of Antithyroid Drugs Does Not Advers;y Affect Therapy and in 'Small Pool' Patients Reduces the Extrathyroidal Radiation Dose. In Progress in Thyroid Research, Gordon, Gross, and Hennemann (eds.), Balkems, Rotterdam: 223-226.
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