Radioiodine treatment for non-toxic goitre.

There is no ideal treatment for benign multinodular goitre. Besides surgery, which is recommended for large goitres or when malignancy cannot be excluded, the non-surgical treatment options are levothyroxine therapy and radioiodine ((131)I) therapy. Conventional (131)I therapy [without recombinant human thyroid-stimulating hormone (rhTSH)] has been used for more than a decade in symptomatic non-toxic multinodular goitre, and although it does lead to significant thyroid volume reduction, relatively high activities of radioiodine are needed because of a frequent finding of a low thyroid radioiodine uptake. rhTSH, even when used in very small doses in combination with (131)I therapy, enhances the thyroid volume reduction at lower (131)I activities by doubling the thyroid radioiodine uptake. However, before rhTSH stimulation can be routinely used by clinicians to optimise the (131)I therapy in multinodular goitre, aspects of this association, such as the cost-benefit and optimum rhTSH dose and safety, will have to be sufficiently clarified.