99mTcO4- scintigraphic detection of follicular thyroid cancer and multiple metastatic lesions: A case report

Abstract

99mTcO4- thyroid imaging is often used to detect thyroid diseases that are confined to the neck. However, this examination is not frequently used to detect metastatic lesions of thyroid cancer in the whole body, while 131I imaging is often used to detect the metastases of differentiated thyroid cancers. The present study performed 99mTcO4- thyroid imaging for a 69-year-old patient with a thyroid nodule and incidentally identified a lesion with abnormally increased 99mTcO4- uptake in the chest of the patient. Furthermore, a whole-body scan was performed for this patient and multiple lesions with increased 99mTcO4- uptake were identified. The results confirmed that these lesions were follicular thyroid cancer and the metastatic lesions were distributed in numerous locations. The results revealed that analysis of the whole body is significant when regional lesions with abnormally increased 99mTcO4- uptake outside of thyroid tissues are identified by routine 99mTcO4- thyroid imaging.