Pulmonary cavitation in patients with thyroid cancer receiving antiangiogenic agents

BACKGROUND: Thyroid malignancies are among the most common endocrine cancers worldwide. Owing to the angiogenic nature of these malignancies, tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) are an attractive potential treatment. However, TKIs have been associated with an increased risk of tumor cavitation, in turn linked to poor outcomes, in patients with malignancies in the lungs, where thyroid cancer commonly metastasizes. METHOD: We performe d a retrospective cohort study of patients with thyroid cancer and evidence of metastatic disease to the lung that were treated with multi-targeted antiangiogenic TKIs. The primary objective of this study was to determine the incidence of pulmonary cavitation. The secondary objective was to evaluate the effect of pulmonary cavitation on survival. RESULTS: Of the 83 patients with pulmonary nodules, 10 developed cavitation during treatment. Of these 83 patients, two patients had to stop the treatment due to pneumothorax. Additionally, cavitation did not demonstrate any significant effect on survival. CONCLUSION: In patients with thyroid cancer and evidence of metastatic disease to the chest, the use of multi-targeted TKIs led to cavitations that were not uncommon but clinical consequences were marginal. Treatment was stopped only in two patients that developed pneumothorax, however the small sample is a strong limitation of our study.