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Alternative Medical Treatment for Radioiodine-Refractory Thyroid Cancers

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Abstract

Thyroid cancer is one of the most rapidly increasing cancers in many countries. Although most thyroid cancers are differentiated cancers and easily treated with radioiodine (RI), a portion of differentiated and undifferentiated cancers is refractory not only to RI therapy, but also to radiotherapy and chemotherapy. Thus, various alternative therapies have been tested in RI-refractory thyroid cancers. These alternative therapies include two major categories: redifferentiation therapy and recent molecular target therapy. Several clinical trials have investigated these therapies. They demonstrated potential effects of the therapies, although the results have been somewhat limited so far. Thus, the future strategy for undifferentiated thyroid cancers will involve individualized, lesion-specific, and combined therapy. In this review, the basic mechanism of each redifferentiation and molecular target therapy is discussed, and results of recent clinical trials using these therapeutic agents are summarized.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Nuclear Medicine, Seoul National University College of Medicine, 101 Daehak-ro 101, Jongno-gu, Seoul, 110-744, Korea

    Jin Chul Paeng, Keon Wook Kang, So Won Oh & June-Key Chung

  2. Thyroid Center, Seoul National University Cancer Hospital, Seoul, Korea

    Jin Chul Paeng, Keon Wook Kang, Do Joon Park & June-Key Chung

  3. Department of Internal Medicine, Seoul National University College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea

    Do Joon Park

  4. Department of Nuclear Medicine, Seoul National University Boramae Medical Center, Seoul, Korea

    So Won Oh

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Correspondence to June-Key Chung.

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Paeng, J.C., Kang, K.W., Park, D.J. et al. Alternative Medical Treatment for Radioiodine-Refractory Thyroid Cancers. Nucl Med Mol Imaging 45, 241–247 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13139-011-0107-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13139-011-0107-7

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