Successful Use of Erlotinib in Treating Recurrent Thymic Carcinoma: A Case Report

Thymic carcinomas are rare and aggressive tumors. Primary treatment for these tumors consists of surgical resection, followed by adjuvant radiation therapy or platinum based chemotherapy. Unfortunately these tumors often exhibit a high incidence of local recurrence and metastasis despite treatment. Of recent interest are new targeted therapies such as Tarceva^® (erlotinib), an epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) inhibitor, for treatment of recurrent thymic carcinoma. Unfortunately recent literature has shown little success with its use, except for a few isolated case reports. Here we present a unique case of progressive disease despite 4 cycles of cisplatin, doxorubicin, vincristine, and cyclophosphamide (ADOC) therapy, and subsequent treatment with 150mg erlotinib daily resulting in partial response at 6 months with tumor shrinking in size and resolution of many metastatic nodules.