ETA2024 Poster Presentations Anaplastic thyroid cancer (10 abstracts)
1University of Pisa, Department of Surgical, Medical, Molecular Pathology and Critical Area, Pisa, Italy; 2University of Pisa, Department of Clinical and Experimental Medicine, Pisa, Italy; 3University of Pisa, Department of Translational Research and New Technologies in Medicine and Surgery, Pisa, Italy
Anaplastic thyroid cancer (ATC) is highly aggressive, and the clinical treatment and management is still challenging. In-depth knowledge of the pathways involved in the phases of tumour initiation and progression of ATC has shifted attention on the use of targeted and personalized therapies, that are based on the tumours genetic profile. In this context, in vitro studies allow a good preclinical evaluation of the antineoplastic effect of the drugs. We aimed to test the antineoplastic effect of cabozantinib, a multikinase inhibitor that inhibits tyrosine kinase receptors that are involved in growth, angiogenesis and metastatic progression of tumour; moreover it was recently approved for the treatment of adult patients with locally advanced or metastatic differentiated thyroid carcinoma, not eligible or refractory to radioactive iodine who have progressed during or after prior systemic therapy. We tested the drug in both continuous ATC cell lines, and in primary human ATC cells, that were obtained directly from ATC patients. The human primary cells were obtained from surgical thyroidal samples of three females and two males with ATC (5581 years) with a tumour size range of 614 cm, at the moment of first surgical operation. As continuos cell lines we used the 8305C and CAL-62 lines. Our results showed firstly a good antineoplastic effect in vitro of cabozantinib in both continuous and primary ATC cells in inhibiting the proliferation of the tumoral cells as well as in increasing their apoptosis. These in vitro studies pave the way to a personalized therapeutic approach to be used in future clinical evaluation in patients with anaplastic thyroid cancer.