ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Oncol.
Sec. Head and Neck Cancer
This article is part of the Research TopicReal World-Evidence in Radioligand Therapy: Above and Beyond a Tongue TwisterView all 3 articles
A preliminary study to evaluate efficacy and safety of Lugol's solution following radioiodine for remnant ablation in differentiated thyroid cancer
Provisionally accepted
- Shanghai Sixth People's Hospital, Shanghai, China
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Purpose: This randomized controlled trial aimed to determine if Lugol's solution following radioactive iodine (RAI) therapy enhances the efficacy of ablation and mitigates radiation-induced toxicity in patients with differentiated thyroid cancer. Methods: In this prospective study, 97 patients were enrolled and randomized to control group (RAI) and test group (RAI + Lugol's solution). The primary endpoint was the rate of successful ablation. The secondary endpoint was short-term (d3 and d10) and long-term (6-to 9-month after RAI therapy) adverse events (AEs). Results: The rate of negative DxWBS was similar between control and test group (93.3% vs. 91.2%, p=0.748). At the 6-to 9-month follow-up, while the successful ablation rate (sTg <1 ng/mL) was numerically higher in the test group compared to the controls (82.8% vs. 66.7%, p=0.131), applying a stricter stimulated thyroglobulin (sTg) cutoff (<0.2 ng/mL) revealed a statistically significant advantage for the test group (65.7% vs. 40.0%, p =0.041). Uni-and multi-variate analysis showed Lugol's Solution administration significantly correlated with lower level of sTg at the 6-to 9-month follow-up. The two groups exhibited comparable short-term AEs rates (46% vs. 34%, p=0.230) and profiles. The most common AEs included neck swelling, pain, loss of appetite and dry mouth. However, the control group reported 2 cases of long-term AEs, whereas none were observed in the test cohort. Conclusion: In this preliminary study, the addition of Lugol's Solution following RAI showed non-inferior ablation efficacy with a numerically lower incidence of long-term AEs, despite numerically higher short-term AE rates.
Keywords: Differentiated thyroid cancer, efficacy, Lugol's solution, Radioiodine remnant ablation, Safety
Received: 08 Jan 2026; Accepted: 11 Feb 2026.
Copyright: © 2026 Wang, Zhu, Luo and Shen. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Quan-Yong Luo
Chentian Shen
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