Dear colleagues,
so far, parallel analysis of human thyroglobulin and thyroglobulin recovery rate was used for monitoring of patients after thyroid resection. The determining of the thyroglobulin recovery rate was used to ensure, that no false low or false negative thyroglobulin values, which were caused by thyroglobulin antibodies were seen.
As the determining of the thyroglobulin recovery rate alone however is relatively susceptible to faults, both the American Thyroid Association (ATA) as well as the European Association of Nuclear Medicine (EANM), recommend direct evaluation of the thyroglobulin antibodies. Due to this, with the parallel analysis of thyroglobulin and thyroglobulin antibodies, false low thyroglobulin values are also identified. Faults caused by other influencing factors do not occur any longer. In addition to this, the thyroglobulin antibody can also function as so-called “surrogate tumor marker”.
With immediate effect, our laboratory automatically carries out parallel evaluation of thyroglobulin and thyroglobulin antibodies instead of the recovery rate.
Should you have any further questions, please contact Dr. Juliane Fazio on tel. +49 5222 8076-207.
Literature:
Haugen et al.: “2015 American Thyroid Association Management Guidelines for Adult Patients with Thyroid Nodules and Differentiated Thyroid Cancer”, Thyroid, Volume 26, Number 1
Verburg et al.: “Why the European Association of Nuclear Medicine has decline to endorse the 2015 American Association management guidelines for adult patients with thyroid nodules an differentiated thyroid cancer”, Eur J Nucl Med Mol Imaging, 2016 Jun;43(6):1001-5
