Combining radiation, surgery and chemotherapy helps patients with rare forms of thyroid cancer live longer, according to a new study.
Anaplastic thyroid carcinoma is a rare and aggressive form of thyroid cancer, afflicting less than 5 percent of those diagnosed with thyroid cancer. Most patients with the rare thyroid cancer lived less than six months after diagnosis.
Researchers at the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston find an aggressive strategy combining surgery, chemotherapy, and accelerated radiation therapy improves survival for patients with this type of cancer. Previously, most of the thyroid tumors could not be surgically removed and radiation and chemotherapy proved ineffective.
In the study, researchers treated 30 patients, with an average age of 59, from 1990 to 2000. Patients who received all three treatments had an average survival rate of 10 months. Overall, 27 percent had a survival rate of three years.
Lead author of the study, Renaud de Crevoisier, M.D., concludes, “The problem with this type of cancer is the rapid evolution in the neck. However, since the tumors grow so quickly, we’re hopeful that aggressive radiation therapy combined with surgery and chemotherapy can halt these fast-growing cancer cells before they can spread, allowing people with this disease to live longer.”
SOURCE: International Journal of Radiation Oncology*Biology*Physics, 2004;60:1137-1143