A combination of therapies may prove to be a promising
advance for the treatment of anaplastic thyroid cancer based on results of a
phase I clinical trial, say researchers at Mayo Clinic in Florida.
Anaplastic thyroid cancer is one of the deadliest of all
cancers. Nearly all patients diagnosed with this cancer die from it, and life
expectancies are measured in weeks to a few months. Even though it is very rare
— approximately 600 patients are diagnosed with anaplastic thyroid cancer each
year in the United States — the cancer accounts for 50 percent of all deaths
from all types of thyroid cancer, according to the American Thyroid
Association.