Endocrine tumours: progressive metastatic medullary thyroid carcinoma: first-and second-line strategies

TP Links, HHG Verbeek, RMW Hofstra… - European journal of …, 2015 - academic.oup.com
TP Links, HHG Verbeek, RMW Hofstra, JTM Plukker
European journal of endocrinology, 2015academic.oup.com
The treatment for metastasised medullary thyroid cancer is still a topic of discussion. One of
the main challenges remains to find effective adjuvant and palliative options for patients with
metastatic disease. The diagnostic and treatment strategies for this tumour are discussed
and possible new developments commented. Approaches that target rearranged during
transfection (RET) are preferable to those that target RET downstream proteins as,
theoretically, blocking RET downstream targets will block only one of the many pathways …
Abstract
The treatment for metastasised medullary thyroid cancer is still a topic of discussion. One of the main challenges remains to find effective adjuvant and palliative options for patients with metastatic disease. The diagnostic and treatment strategies for this tumour are discussed and possible new developments commented. Approaches that target rearranged during transfection (RET) are preferable to those that target RET downstream proteins as, theoretically, blocking RET downstream targets will block only one of the many pathways activated by RET. Combining several agents would seem to be more promising, in particular agents that target RET with those that independently target RET signalling pathways or the more general mechanism of tumour progression.
Oxford University Press