August, 2001

According to the August, 2001 issue of the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, Italian researchers found that RAI treatment for thyroid cancer may provide sufficient enough radiation to damage damage ovarian function and follicles, reducing a woman's period of fertility and causing earlier menopause. The patients studied were all younger than 45 when they received their first treatment for thyroid cancer. The researchers concluded that the RAI treatment was "probably associated with an earlier ovarian failure in thyroid cancer patients," and that irradiation of the ovaries "might contribute to the process of the follicular atresia, thus inducing earlier menopause."

(Atresia is the process by which egg follicles essentially "self-destruct" in the body -- each month, a number of follicles ripen, but only one is released, the remaining follicles are destroyed through the process of atresia.)

"131I Therapy for Differentiated Thyroid Cancer Leads to an Earlier Onset of Menopause: Results of a Retrospective Study," Claudia Ceccarelli, Walter Bencivelli, Donata Morciano, Aldo Pinchera and Furio Pacini, Departments of Endocrinology and Internal Medicine (W.B.), University of Pisa, 56122 Pisa, Italy

Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, August 2001 Volume 86, Issue 8