Long-term survival of patients with anaplastic thyroid cancer after multimodal treatment

BACKGROUND: Anaplastic thyroid cancer (ATC) is among the most aggressive human malignancies, with a mean survival time of 6 months regardless of the treatment. METHODS: This retrospective study used the single-centre database system of the Gangnam Severance Hospital. The management and outcome data of 23 patients with a definitive histological diagnosis of ATC were reviewed. RESULTS: The 23 long-term survivors were 11 men and 12 women, with a mean age of 58 years. Nine patients had distant metastases at the time of diagnosis. Surgical debulking or complete resection of the tumour was performed for 19 patients, and chemotherapy was administered to 15 patients, radiotherapy to 18 patients, and tyrosine kinase inhibitors to 6 patients. In total, 14 patients were treated with a combination of surgery and radiotherapy with or without chemotherapy. Only 5 patients were treated with surgery alone. Overall, 15 patients underwent R0 resection, 2 underwent R1 resection, and 2 underwent R2 resection. The median survival was 1,090 days, the median follow-up was 646 days, and the 2- and 3-year survival rates were 59.7% and 35.8%, respectively. A total of 10 patients died: 7 with local disease and 3 with distant metastasis. CONCLUSIONS: Although ATC is typically an incurable disease, patients with ATC who underwent multimodality treatments including resection, chemotherapy, radiotherapy, and thyrosine kinase inhibitors would survive more than 1 year.