New Clinical Trial for Patients with Anaplastic Thyroid Cancer

As the director of the Division of Surgical Oncology and Head and Neck Surgery at South Nassau Communities Hospital and medical director of the hospital’s Gertrude & Louis Feil Cancer Center, Dr. Rajiv Datta draws on substantial knowledge of thyroid cancer and its treatment. Dr. Rajiv Datta has contributed to a number of research projects on the topic, the results of which appear in such peer-reviewed publications as Head & Neck and the Journal of Surgical Oncology.

Because many patients with aggressive anaplastic thyroid cancers have comorbidities or poor performance from a research standpoint, many clinical trials have not accurately been able to represent or test for the field's real presenting needs. Recently, however, a group of researchers at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center have designed a trial that welcomes many patients who would otherwise be poor candidates for study.

The trial introduces atezolizumab, an immunotherapy drug, as an adjunct to either cytotoxic chemotherapy or a treatment regimen designed for those with anaplastic cancers that are metastasized or impossible to remove surgically. The study aims to address the time delay-involved immunotherapy for patients with anaplastic thyroid cancer, which can easily progress to a fatal point before the therapy takes effect.

Researchers theorized that drugs designed to slow tumor growth might buy time for patients with anaplastic thyroid cancer. Testing of this theory involves assigning patients to treatment groups based on their gene mutations, which determine the types of immunotherapies that the patients will receive. The design of the study targets up to 90 percent of the patients that come to MD Anderson with anaplastic thyroid cancer.