Alarms over radiation from thyroid cancer patients

Yahoo/AP ^ | Oct 20, 2010

[nuconvert]

WASHINGTON – Cancer patients sent home after treatment with radioactive iodine have contaminated hotel rooms and set off alarms on public transportation, a congressional investigation has found

[KarlInOhio]

The genesis of the stuned beeber.

The original stuned beeber thread: Would like freeper help

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

I meant to say that numerically, Graves’ disease is much more common than thyroid cancer. Annually 136,000 cases vs. 44,670.

(That is a little deceptive, as only 70% of Graves’ cases are treated with iodine, but that is still easily double the thyroid cancer stats.)

[goat granny]

People are getting silly. My son had to go to Canada for his job. He got stopped at the border because he set off alarms about radioactive sources. He had a test and thallium /sp still in his system set off the alarm....but the officials equipment knew what the item was and ask him if he had any medical tests lately....They knew what test he had by the readings. Just checked him as a precaution.

Fearful people will try and stop all testing, because they are IDIOTS..

[CaliforniaCon]

Gee, George Bush and wife Barbara both have Graves. Not sure if they had it while in WH, but if they did, it could’ve been contaminated! Oh, the horror!!! /s

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

I remember there was some concern at the time that their Graves had been induced, possibly by bad water from the very old pipes in the Executive Office Building across from the WH.

I have some suspicions that in some cases it can be induced by other diseases, like mononucleosis, caused by human herpesvirus 4 (Epstein-Barr virus) or Cytomegalovirus (human herpesvirus 5), which is more likely in older people. They have already been associated with some cancers.

[Ciexyz]

That being said, radioactive iodine is not something to mess with, and it is not frivolous that such patients should be kept in hospital for a few days, and their urine collected, to be disposed of as radioactive waste.

With all due respect, you don't know what you're talking about and are reacting like the idiot Democrats, who just want to institute a public health scare and increase the nanny state. Should all cancer patients suffer because some selfish idiot can't wait five days after treatment to get on a casino bus? What thyroid cancer patient wants to stay, or can afford the copay to stay, in a hospital room for four days after treatment? It's safe to drive home with a designated driver as long as you the patient stay in the back seat (at least a yard away and not for more than a two-hour drive).

When I had the treatment, I was given a card that said I was radioactive which I had to carry for at least a month, because the sensitive detectors in airports might be set off.

As for the disposal of radioactive urine, the patient is instructed to flush the toilet twice after using it, to clean up any spills or splashes, flush the paperwork, and wash hands with hot soap and water twice, and not to share the bathroom with other family members. In cases where a private bathroom is not possible, or when a patient can't avoid young children in the home, the patient can elect to stay in the hospital and the insurance company will approve it (I know of one case of this nature).

[Mr Inviso]

That sounds pretty much like the drill we used back when I worked the onco floor. We had a couple rooms set aside for 131I treatments. The patients stayed there the first couple days, but after that, they went home.

unfortunately, the dumb Fed regs made us bag up all their personal stuff and send it to the low-level radwaste facility, wherever that is. Stupid, because the stuff is radiologically defunct within 6 months, but by then it’s already taking up dump space (and possibly being neutron-activated by REAL rad waste!)

Hospitals generate a LOT of rad. waste both from therapeutics AND diagnostics, plus some of the machine parts have to be disposed of, as well. Nothing quite says “fun” like a 60Co isotope source.

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

Due to its mode of beta decay, iodine-131 is notable for causing mutation and death in cells which it penetrates, and other cells up to several millimeters away. For this reason, high doses of the isotope are sometimes paradoxically less dangerous than low doses, since they tend to kill tissues which would otherwise become cancerous. Thus, iodine-131 is usually not administered in small doses in medical use, but generally in large and maximal treatment doses, as a way of killing tissues.

Much smaller incidental doses of iodine-131 than are used in medical treatment, are thought to be the major cause of increased thyroid cancers after accidental nuclear contamination. Some 1,800 cases have been attributed to the Chernobyl accident.

It has a half life of a little over 8 days.

Importantly, when iodine is consumed, it will be concentrated in the thyroid gland until it reaches a nominal concentration, after which excess iodine is eliminated from the body. This means that it is likely that a small amount of iodine-131 would be concentrated in the thyroid of a person who inadvertently consumed it, in the optimal situation to induce mutation leading to cancer.

For this reason, children hundreds of miles away were given iodine supplements after Chernobyl, against minuscule quantities of iodine-131 in the air, likely less concentrated than would exist in recycled effluent.