Response of undifferentiated thyroid carcinoma to combined modality treatment

Abstract

A case of undifferentiated cancer of thyroid, developing in an elderly female, is presented. This patient was treated by immuno‐chemotherapy and thyroidectomy with a good result. Following emergency treatment and biopsy, the patient received chemotherapy with adriamycin for 6 weeks and immunotherapy with an adjuvant (P40) derived fromCorynebacterium granulosumfor 3 weeks. A near‐total thyroidectomy was then performed. The authors suggest that, instead of the standard management of this disease—surgery and postoperative radiotherapy, combined modality therapy consisting of chemotherapy, surgery, and immunostimulation should be considered in the treatment of anaplastic thyroid carcinoma.

Multimodal therapy in anaplastic giant cell thyroid carcinoma

“…Different types of combined modality treatments--chemotherapy and radiotherapy [2]; surgery, radiotherapy, and chemotherapy [4, 5J--have been tried but with limited success. Even immunotherapy has been included in the combined therapy reported in some studies [6][7][8].…”