Dietary iodine restriction in preparation for radioactive iodine treatment or scanning in well-differentiated thyroid cancer: a systematic review.

Background: Dietary iodine is often restricted before radioactive iodine (RAI) scanning or treatment of well-differentiated thyroid cancer. Our objective was to examine the impact of a low-iodine diet (LID) before RAI treatment or scanning on the following outcomes: (i) the efficacy of thyroid remnant ablation (or residual disease elimination), (ii) urinary iodine measurements, (iii) RAI kinetics, and (iv) long-term thyroid cancer outcomes.

Methods: We performed a systematic review of the English literature.