ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Oncol.
Sec. Head and Neck Cancer
Volume 15 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fonc.2025.1590086
This article is part of the Research TopicAdvances in Management of Aggressive Thyroid Cancer: Medullary and Advanced Thyroid CancerView all 6 articles
Neoadjuvant Treatment in Locally Advanced Thyroid Cancer: A Single Institution Experience
Provisionally accepted
- Department of Head and Neck Surgery, Hubei Cancer Hospital，Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology., Wuhan, China
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Background: Locally advanced thyroid cancer is a kind of aggressive malignancy with poor overall survival (OS). Neoadjuvant therapy has shown a certain efficacy in locally advanced thyroid cancer. The objective of this study was to assess the efficacy and feasibility of surgery following neoadjuvant therapy in patients.In a retrospective study, we analyzed sixteen patients with locally advanced thyroid cancer from January 2019 to June 2024 in our institution. Among them, 7 patients with unresectable differentiated thyroid cancer (DTC) received tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKI), and 2 patients with poorly differentiated thyroid cancer (PDTC) and 7 patients with anaplastic thyroid carcinoma (ATC) received a combination therapy of TKI, immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICI) or chemotherapy. Response and progression were evaluated by the Response Evaluation Criteria in Solid Tumors (RECIST 1.1). OS was calculated using the Kaplan-Meier method.Results: 16 (4 male and 12 female) patients with locally advanced thyroid cancer were enrolled in this study, in which 10 patients (62.5%) accepted surgery following neoadjuvant therapy and 6 patients (37.5%) refused surgery. The objective response rate (ORR) was 50.00%, and disease control rate (DCR) was 81.25%. Two partial response (PR), two stable disease (SD) and one progressive disease (PD) patients achieved R0/1 resections after neoadjuvant treatment, resulting in a R0/1 resection rate of 50.00%. Grade III/IV toxicities developed in 2 of 16 patients, requiring dose reduction/discontinuation of TKI. The median OS was 17 months, with one PDTC, four ATC and six DTC patients still alive without relapse.Conclusions: Neoadjuvant treatment, including TKI, ICI or chemotherapy treatment, was safe and effective in locally advanced thyroid cancers and could create radical surgery opportunities to improve the prognosis of patients.
Keywords: Locally advanced thyroid cancer, Neoadjuvant treatment, Objective response rate, disease control rate, Retrospective study
Received: 08 Mar 2025; Accepted: 27 May 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Xu, Shi, Niu, An, Xi, Huang, Jiang and Chen. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Ling-feng Xu, Department of Head and Neck Surgery, Hubei Cancer Hospital，Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology., Wuhan, China
Liang Jiang, Department of Head and Neck Surgery, Hubei Cancer Hospital，Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology., Wuhan, China
Jian Chen, Department of Head and Neck Surgery, Hubei Cancer Hospital，Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology., Wuhan, China
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