[ RadSafe ] I-131 Pt and concerns

[Dawry, Frank]

Brian,

The ATA recently produced a useful paper that may be of interest to your friend's friend, and others: http://www.liebertonline.com/doi/full/10.1089/thy.2010.0403


-Frank


Frank P. Dawry 
Medical Physicist 
University of Miami - Radiation Control Center
1600 NW 10 Avenue
Rosenstiel Medical Science Building (B050B)
Miami, Florida 33136
(305) 243-6360
fdawry at med.miami.edu


It's All About The Care !




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Thanks!_______________________________________________
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Message: 1
Date: Wed, 4 Jan 2012 18:32:03 +0000
From: "Rees, Brian G" <brees at lanl.gov>
Subject: [ RadSafe ] I-131 Pt and concerns
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I have a friend, who has a friend that will soon be undergoing I-131 therapy for a metastasized thyroid Ca.  The Pt is a new mother, and went to the www to read about I-131, radiation, etc., and is now convinced she needs to throw away her used clothing, sleep in a different part of the house (the basement), and not have any contact with her baby for a month (among other things)... hopefully she isn't buying over-priced vitamins... but anyway...

I did go through the archives, but haven't found any what I would consider to be good, authoritative and informative sources of information regarding post-therapy care and precautions, but don't have time to go through all the archives either (!).  Recommendations?

I don't know how much activity they are planning to administer (assuming 100-200 mCi or so), or other details (she's a friend of a friend...), but one thing she is particularly concerned about is holding her baby at some point in an infant carrier (the kind that holds the baby against the chest).  Other than making all kinds of assumptions myself, is there an accessible program that I could use to calculate exposures for after a week, 2 weeks, etc., to help inform the mother of what doses would be, rather than having her full of fear?

Yes, I know it's to help the mother, and that an infant thyroid is vulnerable, and that her MD should be making recommendations, and that I'm not an MD, etc., but I sure hate to see a distorted view taken of the potential risks from this procedure.

Thanks in advance,
Brian Rees, NRRPT, CHP