Surgery alone might be sufficient to cure the lowest-risk thyroid cancers, a study published March 10 in The New England Journal of Medicine suggested.
Researchers analyzed 730 patients with low-risk, differentiated thyroid cancer with tumors 2 centimeters or less in width. Half of the patients were randomly sorted to receive no radioactive iodine after the procedure while the other half received the radiation. After three years, there was no difference in the two groups when it came to new treatments, relapses, or abnormal biological markers.