THYROID CANCERS

Artificial intelligence has made inroads in many industries—banking, finance, security—but its adoption in healthcare has been lagging and real-world clinical implementation has yet to become a reality. Nonetheless, proponents say it is only a matter of time and pilot programs are starting to yield some practical results. 

Frederick L. Locke, MD, discusses how chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapies have evolved over the last 30 years of research in the field of hematologic malignancies.

The success of chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapy observed in hematologic malignancies has not yet translated into the solid tumor setting; however, efforts continue to try to bring this new modality into the treatment paradigm for solid tumors, including pancreatic cancer. 

Recently published data from a retrospective study suggest that patients with thyroid cancer who have T-cell lymphopenia are more likely to have aggressive tumors. Investigators believe this information can be used to identify potential therapeutic targets in these patients.

Radiation oncologist Jimmy J. Caudell, MD, PhD,discusses the role of radioactive iodine therapy in patients with DTC. He also highlights areas of research that may help determine the best treatment regimens and doses for select patients.

A comprehensive effort to assess the prevalence of microsatellite instability in a large series of malignant thyroid tumors comprising all major histologic subtypes has found that the overall prevalence of MSI in follicular thyroid cancer is 2.5%. The study also found that MSI is either entirely absent or rare in other histology subtypes of thyroid carcinoma.

Alexander E. Drilon, MD, discusses the next steps for LOXO-292 in 2 subsets of patients: those with RET fusion-positive cancers and <em>RET</em>-mutant medullary thyroid cancers.

The healthcare community is still awaiting a response from the Centers for Medicare &amp; Medicaid Services to the opposition of the agency&rsquo;s proposal to substantially revise the Medicare Part D protected drug classes.

Overtreating men 70 years or older with prostate cancer cost Medicare more than $1.2 billion from 2004 to 2007, according to the results of a retrospective study using the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results&ndash;Medicare linked database.

Lori J. Wirth, MD,&nbsp;discusses the current treatment options for patients with advanced thyroid cancers, in addition to some of the trials that are currently enrolling at her center. She also highlights early data that have been presented for targeted therapies in advanced thyroid cancer.

Lori J. Wirth, MD, associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and medical director of the Center for Head and Neck Cancers at Massachusetts General Hospital, discusses how common RET alterations are in thyroid cancers.

Adjuvant external beam radiation therapy was associated with worse overall survival and disease-specific survival in patients with locally invasive papillary thyroid carcinoma, a new retrospective cohort study has found.

Lenvatinib demonstrated promising antitumor activity and a manageable toxicity profile in 3 main subtypes of thyroid cancer, according to findings recently published in <em>Future Oncology.</em>

Jochen H. Lorch, MD,&nbsp;discussed some of the ongoing trials at his institution across various types of thyroid cancer.

Lori J. Wirth, MD, discussed the findings for a small cohort of patients with anaplastic thyroid cancer treated with an anti-PD-1 antibody.

Positive RET staining by immunohistochemistry was associated with a low risk of recurrence and death from papillary thyroid cancer, according to a new exploratory analysis published in <em>Cancer Medicine</em> that examined a cohort of 231 patients with long-term follow up at a single institution.