IT’S hard to believe swallowing a radioactive pill and being isolated in a lead-lined room for three days would be good for anyone’s health, but that’s exactly what patients are going to do thanks to Tamworth hospital’s new service.
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Patient Julie Jansson will be the first person to use the hospital’s new radioactive iodine ablation service.
Earlier this year Ms Jansson had her cancerous thyroid gland removed.
She will swallow a tablet containing radioactive iodine to mop up and kill any residual cancerous thyroid cells.
Hunter New England Health assistant chief nuclear medicine scientist, Chris Skilton, said even the best surgery could leave some cancer cells behind.
“It’s a very simple process – it is literally swallowing a capsule of radioactive iodine like you would swallow a Panadol,” Mr Skilton said.
“That radioactive iodine will be accumulated in any residual thyroid cells, deposit radiation in those cells and kill them.”
Ms Jansson will be isolated in a private, lead-lined room for up to three days to ensure the people around her remain safe from significant radiation exposure.
Staff will test her with a radiation detection device to ensure her radiation levels are safe enough for her to go out in public.
The radioactive iodine tablet needs to be transported in a six-kilogram box, lined with lead and foam.
The treatment has been used for more than 30 years and is still the best way to kill residual thyroid cells for certain types of thyroid cancers.
Tamworth hospital had not been able to offer the service as it didn’t have a lead-lined isolation room.
Mr Skilton said the lead-lined isolation room had been “in the planning” for about 10 years and was the only one in the region.
“The New England region does have quite a few patients that do have to travel to Newcastle or Sydney to have this treatment done – starting this service in Tamworth is a great thing for the community and local patients,” he said.
Ms Jansson is a full-time carer for her mum and said it would “take a lot of stress off” her getting the treatment done in Tamworth.
“I won’t have to travel to Newcastle, Brisbane or Sydney to have the treatment, which would have meant leaving my mum here with no one to care for her,” Ms Jansson said.
“It would have been very stressful – I probably would have put off the treatment.”
