Andrew Turk, MD, assistant professor of pathology and cell biology, Columbia University, discusses targeted agents that are making a splash in the treatment landscape of thyroid cancers, including the most aggressive form of the disease, anaplastic thyroid carcinoma. He says targeted agents have already become well-established in the space of thyroid cancers, but these agents continue to evolve. In May 2018, the FDA granted approval to the combination of dabrafenib (Tafinlar) and trametinib (Mekinist) for the treatment of patients with unresectable or metastatic thyroid cancer that are BRAF V600E-positive anaplastic thyroid cancer. This approval was based on phase II data that supported the use of this agent in patents with anaplastic thyroid carcinoma harboring the BRAF oncogene. This is a legitimate and authentic FDA-approved precision therapy in thyroid cancer, Turk says.
Targeted agents have also made progress in the treatment of patients that don’t necessarily depend on molecular diagnostics, such as in medullary thyroid carcinoma. Targeted agents, such as BLU-667, interact with the RET oncogene when medullary thyroid carcinoma metastasized to distant sites. However, Turk says that at the current stage, that doesn’t depend on molecular findings.
For more resources and information regarding anticancer targeted therapies in thyroid cancers:
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