Abstract
Anaplastic thyroid cancer (ATC) is a devastating disease with a dismal prognosis. Patients who have disease confined to the thyroid and who are able to undergo complete surgery and chemoradiation stand the best chance for survival. Unfortunately, nearly 50% of patients have distant metastases at diagnosis, and most present with locally advanced, unresectable tumors. Nevertheless, BRAF-mutated ATC patients represent a subset of cases who can benefit from a combination therapy with BRAF and MEK inhibitors. Here, a patient is presented with end-stage, locally advanced, unresectable ATC who was treated with this combination. Immunotherapy with pembrolizumab was added at the first sign of progression after which he achieved a partial response to therapy, enabling a complete surgical resection followed by postoperative chemoradiation to be undertaken. This novel neoadjuvant approach to BRAF-mutated ATC should be studied in further in clinical trials.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 945-951 |
Number of pages | 7 |
Journal | Thyroid |
Volume | 28 |
Issue number | 7 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Jul 2018 |
Keywords
- Dabrafenib
- Pembrolizumab
- Sarcomatoid
- Squamous
- Trametinib
- Undifferentiated
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism
- Endocrinology