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CASE REPORT article

Front. Oncol.

Sec. Gastrointestinal Cancers: Colorectal Cancer

Sensitivity of metastatic mucinous tailgut cyst adenocarcinoma to gemcitabine and to radiation: a case report

Provisionally accepted
Maliha NusratMaliha Nusrat1*Kenneth H YuKenneth H Yu1Laura TangLaura Tang1Mohammad Ali El AmineMohammad Ali El Amine1Brian MccarthyBrian Mccarthy2Karuna GaneshKaruna Ganesh1Elisa De StanchinaElisa De Stanchina1Emmanouil PappouEmmanouil Pappou1Julio Garcia AguilarJulio Garcia Aguilar1Meredith BartelsteinMeredith Bartelstein1Christopher CraneChristopher Crane1David KelsenDavid Kelsen1Leonard SaltzLeonard Saltz1Carla HajjCarla Hajj1
  • 1Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, United States
  • 2Adera Biolabs, Germantown, Maryland, United States

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Metastatic mucinous adenocarcinoma arising from tailgut cyst is an ultra-rare cancer. Literature on the chemosensitivities and radiosensitivity of this cancer is lacking, and treatment is extrapolated from rectal cancer. We are reporting, for the first-time, the case of a patient with metastatic tailgut cyst adenocarcinoma who derived 1.5 years of clinical benefit from treatment with gemcitabine, selected as a result of transcriptomic analysis of her circulating tumor cells using an in vitro assay. The cancer was refractory to regimens extrapolated from rectal cancer (capecitabine with oxaliplatin, and irinotecan). Pelvic recurrence and osseous metastases were clearly radiosensitive. Tumor molecular profile showed microsatellite stable cancer with KRAS p.G13D and TP53 p.C176W mutations.

Keywords: Tailgut cyst adenocarcinoma, retrorectal cyst hamartoma, circulating tumor cells, Chemosensitivity assay, personalized medicine

Received: 30 Apr 2025; Accepted: 24 Oct 2025.

Copyright: © 2025 Nusrat, Yu, Tang, El Amine, Mccarthy, Ganesh, De Stanchina, Pappou, Aguilar, Bartelstein, Crane, Kelsen, Saltz and Hajj. 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: Maliha Nusrat, nusratm@mskcc.org

Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

Supplementary Material