Anaplastic thyroid carcinoma: Failure of conventional therapy but hope of targeted therapy

Anaplastic thyroid cancer has a median survival between 1.2 and 10 months. The purpose of our study was to evaluate the outcomes of patients with anaplastic thyroid cancer in Ireland.

We carried out a retrospective analysis of the Irish National Cancer Database for patients with anaplastic thyroid cancer between 2000 and 2010.

Of a total of 64 patients (40 women, 24 men), the median age was 69 years, and 29.7% of the patients had distant metastases. The overall median survival was 2.3 months and the 1, 2, and 5-year survival was 12.5%, 6.25%, and 4.69%, respectively. On univariate analysis age, sex, metastases at diagnosis, and multimodality treatment were statistically significant indicators of prognosis, and metastases at diagnosis remained statistically significant on multivariate analysis.

These results correlate with the American Thyroid Association (ATA) guidelines, in which, when possible, multimodality therapy offers a survival advantage to a select group of patients. Novel therapies may offer the greatest hope for these patients. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Head Neck 38: E1122-E1129, 2016.