(Secondary) solid tumors in thyroid cancer patients treated with the multi-kinase inhibitor sorafenib may present diagnostic challenges
Publication year
2016Source
BMC Cancer, 16, (2016), article 31ISSN
Publication type
Article / Letter to editor

Display more detailsDisplay less details
Organization
Internal Medicine
Medical Oncology
Journal title
BMC Cancer
Volume
vol. 16
Subject
Radboudumc 17: Women's cancers RIHS: Radboud Institute for Health Sciences; Radboudumc 18: Healthcare improvement science RIHS: Radboud Institute for Health SciencesAbstract
BACKGROUND: Sorafenib is an orally active multikinase tyrosine kinase inhibitor (TKI) that targets B-type Raf kinase (BRAF), vascular endothelial growth factor receptors (VEGFR) 1 and 2, and rearranged during transfection (RET), inducing anti-angiogenic and pro-apoptotic actions in a wide range of solid tumors. A side effect of sorafenib is the occurrence of cutaneous squamous tumors. CASE PRESENTATION: Here we describe three patients with a history of sorafenib treatment for advanced radioactive iodine refractory papillary thyroid cancer (two with a BRAF c.1799 T > A and one carrying a rare c.1799-1801het_delTGA mutation) who presented with secondary non-cutaneous lesions. The first patient was diagnosed with a squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) of the tongue, the second patient with a primary adenocarcinoma of the lung, and the third with a SCC originating from the cricoid. Secondary analysis was required to show that the latter two presentations were in fact recurrent thyroid cancer. CONCLUSION: These findings suggest that drugs such as sorafenib may induce metaplasia/clonal divergence of metastatic thyroid cancer and thus cause diagnostic misclassification. Furthermore, sorafenib is potentially involved in the tumorigenesis of secondary non-cutaneous SCC. These observations should now be confirmed in larger series of patients treated with drugs such as sorafenib.
This item appears in the following Collection(s)
- Academic publications [202923]
- Electronic publications [101091]
- Faculty of Medical Sciences [80072]
- Open Access publications [69755]
Upload full text
Use your RU credentials (u/z-number and password) to log in with SURFconext to upload a file for processing by the repository team.