Re: I-131 Therapy Dose Limits

[Ccja@aol.com]

In fact, there are, or used to be (in early 1980's) licensees, in New York
City, who actually had regulatory limits on the amount of NaI131 that could
be given to patients. One world-famous medical center had a limit of 200
mCi/patient in any one dose. NYC also didn't permit decay-in-storage!!?

I think that most nuclear physicians probably would agree that no more than
300 mCi should be given at any one time, to avoid depressing the bone marrow.
The folks at the Univ of Washington may give as much as 800 mCi for
radioimmunotherapy, as a part of pre-BMT conditioning (reduces the amount of
total-body/total-marrow irradiation required). But, of course, that's I131 as
a labelled antibody, not as NaI.

chris alston
ccja@aol.com