Santillan Marco Ruiz, Dadu Ramona, Gagel Robert F, Grubbs Elizabeth G, Hu Mimi I
Department of Endocrine Neoplasia and Hormonal Disorders, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX, USA.
Department of Surgical Oncology, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX, USA.
Recent Results Cancer Res. 2025;223:293-307. doi: 10.1007/978-3-031-80396-3_12.
Medullary thyroid carcinoma (MTC) is a rare disease that is indolent in the majority of patients. In a subset of patients, the cancer is more aggressive with symptomatic or progressive disease metastasizing to cervical neck structures, lungs, liver, and/or bones. Definitive cure for metastatic MTC remains elusive. Understanding oncogenic pathways and molecular drivers of disease have led to development and approval of multikinase and highly-specific RET inhibitors for the management of progressive MTC. RET mutations are the most common drivers in MTC, followed by mutually exclusive RAS mutations. Cabozantinib and vandetanib, multikinase inhibitors (MKIs) that exert their therapeutic effect mainly through antiangiogenesis by targeting the vascular endothelial growth factor receptor, have mild anti-RET activity. Despite conveying clinical responses in MTC, MKIs have significant off-target activity causing marked toxicities limiting their effectiveness. Potent and selective RET inhibitors, selpercatinib and pralsetinib, demonstrate significant efficacy in RET-altered cancers and more tolerable side effect profiles than MKIs. However, durable responses can be limited by the acquisition of mutations which confer drug resistance to available treatments. Thus, development of more effective treatments for advanced, progressive MTC remains an urgent priority. In this chapter, we describe the current spectrum of systemic therapies for MTC, their limitations, and ongoing investigations.
甲状腺髓样癌(MTC)是一种罕见疾病,大多数患者病情进展缓慢。在一部分患者中,癌症更为侵袭性,出现有症状的疾病或疾病进展,转移至颈部结构、肺、肝和/或骨。转移性MTC的根治方法仍然难以捉摸。对致癌途径和疾病分子驱动因素的了解促使多激酶和高度特异性RET抑制剂的开发和获批,用于治疗进展性MTC。RET突变是MTC中最常见的驱动因素,其次是相互排斥的RAS突变。卡博替尼和凡德他尼是多激酶抑制剂(MKIs),主要通过靶向血管内皮生长因子受体发挥抗血管生成的治疗作用,具有轻度的抗RET活性。尽管MKIs在MTC中能带来临床反应,但具有显著的脱靶活性,导致明显的毒性,限制了它们的有效性。强效和选择性RET抑制剂塞普替尼和普拉替尼在RET改变的癌症中显示出显著疗效,且副作用比MKIs更易耐受。然而,持久反应可能会受到获得性突变的限制,这些突变会使现有治疗产生耐药性。因此,开发更有效的晚期进展性MTC治疗方法仍然是当务之急。在本章中,我们描述了MTC目前的全身治疗范围、其局限性以及正在进行的研究。