Date: 19 June 1990

Location: Honolulu, Hawaii, USA

Type of event: radioiodine exposure to infant through breastfeeding

Description:

A female patient from the Pacific island of Truk in Micronesia was being treated at Tripler Army Medical Center, Honolulu, for a tumor in the thyroid. The administering physician was not aware the woman was nursing her 18-day-old daughter; this was attributable to a communication breakdown between the diagnosing physician in Guam and the physician administering treatment in Hawaii, failure of Tipler staff to have the patient complete an appropriate questionnaire, and failure of the patient to report she was breastfeeding. On 19 June the patient received a 5 mCi oral iodine-131 treatment. About 12 hours after treatment the patient resumed breastfeeding of the infant. During followup on 21 June the physician identified iodine-131 uptake in the breasts and recognized the risk to the infant. The baby was brought in and found to have significant thyroid contamination; estimated dose to the infant's thyroid was 30,000 rads with a whole-body dose of 17 rads. The infant was expected to lose the thyroid but not suffer other injury.

Consequences: 1 injury.

References:

• Marcus, Carol S., 4 July 1990, "Breast-feeding following administration of 5 mCi NaI-131 for metastatic survey," Tripler Army Medical Center memo, on line at Paul V. Galvin Library [http://www.gl.iit.edu/govdocs/resources/TripplerMemo02.pdf].
• Office for Analysis and Evaluation of Operational Data, Oct. 1990, "Report to Congress on Abnormal Occurrences, April-June 1990," Nuclear Regulatory Commission (Washington, DC), on line at Paul V. Galvin Library [http://www.gl.iit.edu/govdocs/resources/TripplerMemo02.pdf].

© 2006 by Wm. Robert Johnston.
Last modified 15 September 2006.
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