SNMMI/EANM practice guideline vs. ETA Consensus Statement: differences and similarities in approaching differentiated thyroid cancer management—the EANM perspective

Excerpt

During the last few years, especially since the American Thyroid Association guidelines was released in 2015, there has been an intense debate on the management of thyroid cancer with particular emphasis on the use of radioactive iodine for diagnostic and therapeutic purposes. The Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging (SNMMI) and The European Association of Nuclear Medicine (EANM) have just published joint practice guidelines on the nuclear medicine evaluation and therapy of differentiated thyroid cancer (DTC) [1]. Recently, the European Thyroid Association (ETA) also released the 2022 ETA Consensus Statement: “What are the indications for post-surgical radioiodine therapy in differentiated thyroid cancer?” [2]. In addition, not long ago, a German position paper from surgery and nuclear medicine was published in reaction to the ETA Consensus Statement with a very different perspective, similar to the newly published SNMMI/EANM guideline [3]. Overall, despite the use of the widely accepted risk-adapted therapy, its interpretation and relative approaches to DTC management, and in particular to the clinical use of radioactive iodine, still differ significantly in European countries [4]. …