How soon can surgery be done after I131?

[Mitzy19]

How soon can my cat have surgery to remove a tumor in his abdomen after his I131 treatment?  They did an ultrasound and fine needle biopsy before the I131 treatment, and just before giving him the radioiodine, the vet told me that because he had a fever, he now thinks the tumor may be cancer--not benignBenign ear cyst or tumor
Benign positional vertigo, like he'd told me a couple weeks ago.  So I want to have it removed asap, but don't know when that would be.  I would have a local vet do the surgery--not the one who did the I131.

[Cliff Redford, DVM]

For those readers out there who are unaware of this treatment, radioactive Iodine is injected into a cat suffering from a hyperactive thyroid gland. Hyperthyroidism is a dangerous disease and can lead to severe weight loss, hypertension, blindeness, kidney failure etc. The thyroid hormone is created with iodine so by giving the cat radioactive iodine, the radiation gets taken in by the thyroid gland and essentially destroys the benign tumour causing the problems.
To answer your question specifically, I would say that it depends upon how well your cat has responded to the radiation. Normally cats are stable after 3-5 days of injection and if this new growth is cancerous then every day you wait can reduce the prognosis. If I was your vet I would be speaking with the specialist and asking if the cat's immune system and therefore healing has been significantly suppressed with this treatment. I do feel however that time is of the essence in this case and would risk post operative complications and be more aggressive with post operative support to help your cat heal faster.

[Mitzy19]

Thank you!  He's recovered very well from the I131.  I was told that if he needed to see a vet in the 2 weeks after he came home that the vet's office would need to do some type of decontamination due to the radioactivity he still has.  Plus I wasn't sure if his immune system was compromised by the I131.  It will be 2 weeks on Saturday, so I'll have to see if I can get him in next week, asap!