131-I radioactive iodine (RAI) scan is an important modality in the management of differentiated thyroid cancer to detect recurrent or residual disease. Thus it is important to have knowledge about the possibility of false positive findings in these scans to avoid wrongful diagnosis and unnecessary treatment. We here by present a patient who underwent total thyroidectomy with lymph node dissection and followed by radioactive iodine therapy for papillary thyroid cancer. He had 131-I iodine avid nodular lesion in the left parotid gland which was later proven to be oncocytoma on histopathology. False positive findings on radioactive iodine scans are a possibility which should be known to surgeons as well as nuclear medicine physicians for accurate diagnosis and appropriate management.
Keywords: 131- I radioiodine scan; Differentiated thyroid cancer; Oncocytoma; Papillary thyroid cancer; Radioiodine therapy.
© Association of Otolaryngologists of India 2023. Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.