An Analysis of the Results of the SELECT Trial in Thyroid Cancer

Clinical Pearls

Lori J. Wirth, MD, medical director, Center for Head and Neck Cancers, Massachusetts General Hospital, assistant professor, Harvard Medical School, discusses theresults from the phase III SELECT trialthat analyzed lenvatinib (E7080) in patients with¹³¹I-refractory differentiated thyroid cancer. There were 6 treatment-related deaths on the study.

• In the SELECT trial, patients had to have disease progression at time of entry to be eligible. These patients had bad thyroid cancer that was progressive over a short period of time.
• The side effects of lenvatinib are similar to those with other VEGFR multikinase inhibitors: hypertension, diarrhea, decreased appetite, weight loss, and rash.
• There were 6 treatment-related deaths on the study: 2 were known toxicities of this class of drugs and 4 patients died due to generalized deterioration of their health.
• In the context of this patient population, deaths are not uncommon with effective oncology drugs.