Advances in Metastatic Thyroid Cancer

Larisa Greenberg, MD, a medical oncologist at Allegheny Clinic Medical Oncology of Allegheny Health Network, discusses how the treatment landscape for metastatic thyroid cancer has moved forward in recent years.

According to Greenberg, many of the newer options are selected based on molecular profiling. This testing will help identify targetable abnormalities, which can be treated with tyrosine kinase inhibitors or multikinase inhibitors, says Greenberg. Some abnormalities that can be found in patients with metastatic thyroid cancer are NTRK fusions, RET mutations, BRAF mutations.

Transcript:

0:08 | In the last 5 to 10 years, we made incredible progress in treatment of metastatic thyroid cancer. The first thing that happens when we have a patient who has metastatic disease is we have to evaluate the performance status of the patient or comorbidities.

0:31 | We also must look at the rate of growth and size of metastatic lesions. If a patient is asymptomatic, the size of the lesions or metastatic lesions is less than 2%, and the rate of advancing of metastatic disease is less than 20%. Over a period of years, we would tend to observe these patients and not to start them on any specific treatment. However, if patient is symptomatic and the rate of the progression of the metastatic disease is more than 20% over a period of year, then we have to think about different treatment options.