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Tumors of unknown origin.
1Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, Tennessee.
CA: a Cancer Journal for Clinicians
|March 1, 1992
Summary
Identifying treatable patient subsets in carcinomas of unknown primary site improves management. Further research into occult primary sites like lung and GI cancers is needed for sensitive tumors.
Area of Science:
- Oncology
- Pathology
Background:
- Carcinomas of unknown primary site (CUP) represent a heterogeneous group of cancers.
- Effective management of CUP is challenging due to diagnostic difficulties.
Purpose of the Study:
- To identify treatable patient subsets within the CUP population.
- To outline clinical and pathologic evaluations for identifying these subsets.
Main Methods:
- Clinical and pathologic evaluation to define responsive tumor subsets.
- Therapeutic trials to assess tumor responsiveness to chemotherapy.
- Establishment of a registry and slide bank for data collection and future analysis.
Main Results:
- Recognition of specific patient subsets with responsive tumors represents an advance in CUP management.
- Cisplatin-based chemotherapy shows efficacy in some patients not fitting defined subsets.
- A significant group of patients have tumors insensitive to current therapies.
Conclusions:
- Clinical and pathologic evaluation can identify treatable subsets of CUP.
- Improved therapies for insensitive CUP likely depend on advances in treating specific solid tumors (e.g., non-small cell lung cancer, gastrointestinal cancers).
- Ongoing data collection and biobanking aim to refine diagnosis and therapy for CUP.