Letter to the Editor

Refractory Metastatic Thyroid Cancer: Is Doxorubicin Still a Valid Treatment Option?

Authors: Constantin A. Dasanu, MD, PhD

Abstract

To the Editor:


Although widely metastatic disease is rarely seen with papillary thyroid carcinoma, it represents the main cause of death in affected patients. Furthermore, the mortality rate increases dramatically after the age of 60. The most common metastatic sites are lung (∼50%), bone (∼25%), or both (∼15%). With distant metastases affecting only the lungs, 54% of patients in a large series were alive at 10 years after initiation of iodine-131 (I-131) treatment.1 However, the vast majority of patients with bone involvement lived less than five years in the same cohort.

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References

1. Brown AP, Greening WP, McCready VR, et al. Radioiodine treatment of metastatic thyroid carcinoma: the Royal Marsden Hospital experience. Br J Radiol 1984;57:323–327.
 
2. Droz JP, Schlumberger M, Rougier P, et al. Chemotherapy in metastatic nonanaplastic thyroid cancer: experience at the Institut Gustave-Roussy. Tumori 1990;76:480–483.
 
 
3. Ahuja S, Ernst H. Chemotherapy of thyroid carcinoma. J Endocrinol Invest 1987;10:303–310.
 
4. Sherman SI. Tyrosine kinase inhibitors and the thyroid. Best Pract Res Clin Endocrinol Metab 2009;23:713–722.