Metastatic follicular thyroid cancer with a longstanding responsiveness to gemcitabine plus oxaliplatin

BACKGROUND: Treatment of advanced follicular thyroid carcinoma (FTC) is based primarily on indirect evidence obtained with multikinase inhibitors (MKI) in clinical trials in which papillary carcinomas represent the vast majority of cases. However, it should be noted that MKI have a non-negligible toxicity that may decrease the patient’s quality of life. Conventional chemotherapy with GEMOX (gemcitabine plus oxaliplatin) is an off-label therapy, which seems to have some effectiveness in advanced differentiated thyroid carcinomas, with a good safety profile, although further studies are needed. CASE REPORT: We report a case of a metastatic FTC, resistant to several lines of therapy. However, with a durable response to GEMOX, the overall survival of our patient appears to have been extended significantly due to this chemotherapy. CONCLUSION: GEMOX may have a role in patients with thyroid cancer unresponsive to MKI.