Metastatic medullary thyroid cancer: a dramatic response to a systemic chemotherapy (temozolomide and capecitabine) regimen

A 40-year-old male patient presented with increasing serum levels of calcitonin and CEA. He underwent potential curative surgery for medullary thyroid carcinoma, 3 years ago and then 7 months later he had metastasectomy and cervical lymph node dissection for recurrent disease. On admission he had multiple metastatic skin nodules on the chest wall and positron emission tomography–computed tomography revealed multiple visceral metastases as well. The patient had not received any systemic treatment up to that time; therefore, we considered systemic treatment with the new tyrosine kinase inhibitors (vandetanib, cabozantinib, etc). However, since these drugs are only available after cytotoxic chemotherapy, we started temozolomide and capecitabine chemotherapy. After two courses of the treatment all skin nodules disappeared and CEA and calcitonin levels normalized, radiological imaging showed a good partial response.