New therapies for anaplastic thyroid cancer.

New therapies for anaplastic thyroid cancer. Drugs Today (Barc). 2018 Nov;54(11):695-704 Authors: Agrawal VR, Hreno J, Patil T, Bowles DW Abstract Anaplastic thyroid cancer is a rare but extremely aggressive type of thyroid cancer. Treatment typically consists of surgery, external beam radiotherapy and cytotoxic chemotherapy. However, available literature suggests only modest survival benefit for cytotoxic chemotherapy. Recent advances have suggested the combination of BRAF and MEK inhibition may have a profound and durable effect on patients with BRAFV600E-mutated anaplastic thyroid cancer, with a response rate of 69%. Other systemic treatments, including immunotherapies, have also shown promising but more limited results. Many clinical trials assessing the efficacy of kinase inhibitors and immunotherapies are currently ongoing. PMID: 30539168 [PubMed - in process]
Source: Drugs of Today - Category: Drugs & Pharmacology Tags: Drugs Today (Barc) Source Type: research