Serial serum thyroglobulin measurements in the management of differentiated thyroid carcinoma.

Serum thyroglobulin (Tg) was measured on repeated occasions in 416 patients with differentiated thyroid cancer for up to 7 years after initial therapy. All patients had thyroidectomy and/or ablative 131I therapy and all measurements were done while patients were receiving T4 replacement. Tg was measured using a double-antibody radioimmunoassay. Overall correlation between serum Tg concentration and presence or absence of cancer was 95.9%. At the time of initial measurement 295 patients had serum Tg less than 5 micrograms/l, and in latest analysis only 1.7% of these patients showed evidence of disease. Initially there were 19 patients of a total of 121 with serum Tg greater than 5 micrograms/l in whom no cancer was apparent. In eight of these 19 subjects recurrent or metastatic disease has been diagnosed up to 3.5 years after the first measurement indicating that in these cases serum Tg values were 'predictive'. Serum Tg appears to be a sensitive and specific means of detecting residual, recurrent or metastatic thyroid cancer and in most situations can replace routine, expensive and inconvenient radioactive thyroid scans; these should be performed when serum Tg values are elevated or when there is clinical evidence suggesting recurrence.