Cancer Treatment Today

Medullary and papillary thyroid carcinoma (MTC and PTC) are two types of thyroid cancer that can originate from activating mutations or rearrangements in the RET gene. Axitinib has been studied for thyroid cancer. Two phase II studies were reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology evaluating different axitinib and sorafenib therapies in patients with advanced thyroid cancer have special significance. The multicenter trial from Cohen et al used

Recurrent thyroid cancer can present as isolated localized nodules, which may persist for a long time, and may conceivably not require systemic treatment. Alcohol ablation involves injecting small recurrent thyroid cancers with alcohol using imaging such as ultrasound for placement. This procedure was pioneered at Mayo clinic and is not universally available. The Thyroid Associations guideline of 2009 says: “Data supporting the safety and efficacy

Sorafenib is an oral multiple kinase inhibitor that targets both tumor-cell proliferation and angiogenesis(1). Approved in December 2005 for advanced renal cell carcinoma, it is being further developed by the manufacturer for metastatic melanoma, advanced primary liver cancer, and NSCLC. Several small studies have been presented or published(2,3). In one recent Phase II clinical trial, 30 patients with advanced iodine-refractory thyroid cancer were

Lay Summary: PET scan can detect non-iodine avid thyroid cancers and is standard of care. PET scan has a defined albeit limited role in thyroid cancer. In the setting of suspected recurrent thyroid cancer, PET scans may be used to perform functional imaging when radioactive iodine scans have proven to be unreliable or difficult to interpret. Differentiated thyroid cancer cells may undergo a process of transformation whereby they lose some or all

Anaplastic thyroid cancer, is usually too aggressive and invasive to resect. It metastisizes asily and early. Therefore, only a small portion of patients can undergo surgical resection of the cancer for cure. For those patients which are diagnosed at an earlier stage, total thyroidectomy is necessary. It is imperative to perform a full staging to exclude emtastatic disease before consdiering a resection. Thos who have advanced cancer and cannot undergo

Rapidly-progressive, distantly metastatic thyroid cancers, unresponsive to I-131, are lethal and haven't known effective systemic therapies. A prior thalidomide trial in this context had 50% response rate (PR + SD), 6 months mean durability and significant toxicity. An open-label phase II trial was recently published that included of 25 adult patients with distantly metastatic, I-131-unresponsive (papillary, follicular, or insular) thyroid cancers

Votrient is a multi-targeted tyrosine kinase inhibitor and it is currently approved for renal cell carcinoma. A recent study evaluated it in thyroid cancer. This phase II trial included 37 patients who had received up to two prior therapies, had measurable disease, and whose disease had progressed in the six months before they were enrolled in the study. Patients received 800 mg of Votrient daily. Following a median of 12 four-week cycles of treatment

F-18 labeled fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) is coming into increased being used as a scanning agent in positron emission tomography (PET), especially to diagnose and follow patients with different types of cancer, including thyroid.   There is supportive evidence for PET scan’s utility specifically for Hurthle cell type of thyroid cancer. Hurthle cell thyroid cancer is a differentiated thyroid cancer that is more similar to follicular than pappillary

FDG-PET has not been studied for surveillance in patients with ATC. A limited number of reports of FDG-PET studies in patients with ATC are available. Jadvar et al described that FDG-PET correctly detected anaplastic thyroid cancer along with other rare tumors evaluation. Conti et al found positive findings in a patient with anaplastic carcinoma in a study of thyroid cancer by FDG-PET. McDougall et al also reported positive FDG-PET findings in the