Open AccessIncidentally Visualization of the Thymus on Whole-Body Iodine Scintigraphy
Author(s) -
Mahdi Haghighatafshar,
Farinaz Farhoudi
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
medicine
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.59
H-Index - 148
eISSN - 1536-5964
pISSN - 0025-7974
DOI - 10.1097/md.0000000000001015
Subject(s) - medicine , scintigraphy , thyroid , radioiodine therapy , lymph node , follicular phase , iodine , thyroid carcinoma , thyroidectomy , radiology , pathology , nuclear medicine , materials science , metallurgy
Radioiodine uptake is not commonly seen by the thymus gland. On the contrary, the gland is slowly replaced by fat after puberty. Herein, we present 2 patients with papillary thyroid carcinoma, follicular variant, and cervical lymph node involvement. After total/near-total thyroidectomy, the patients received 131 I for ablation therapy. On posttreatment radioiodine scintigraphy, mediastinal 131 I uptake was noted that finally was histologically/anatomically diagnosed as thymus gland uptake. It should be borne in mind as a potential cause of false-positive whole-body 131 I scintigraphy.