Goals of RAI Therapy in Differentiated Thyroid Cancer (1)
| RAI therapy type | Goal | Potential benefit |
| Remnant ablation | Destroy normal thyroid tissue remaining after total thyroidectomy | Improve initial staging; facilitate highly sensitive follow-up |
| Adjuvant treatment | Destroy subclinical microscopic tumor deposits that may be present | Decrease recurrence; improve disease-specific survival |
| Treatment of known residual/recurrent disease | Destroy known residual/recurrent disease | Achieve excellent response (remission) |
| Improve disease-specific survival | ||
| Improve progression-free survival |