Modeling follicular thyroid cancer for future therapies.

Therapeutic choices are limited for undifferentiated metastatic thyroid carcinomas. Although implanted subcutaneous thyroid tumors are standard preclinical models to examine the efficacy of new therapeutic agents, these xenograft models frequently fail to predict the outcomes of clinical trials in patients with metastatic thyroid carcinomas. Genetically engineered mouse models with alterations similar to human cancers in their pathological progression and in an immunocompetent environment offer unparalleled opportunities for evaluating novel potential molecular targets. We review recent advances in the modeling of follicular thyroid carcinoma with distant metastasis and in the use of these mouse models in preclinical studies, emphasizing the significance of genetically engineered mouse models in clinical applications.