The treatment and prognosis of anaplastic thyroid carcinoma

Objective To investigate the clinical biocharacteristics,treatment,prognosis and the factors that influence prognosis of anaplastic thyroid carcinoma(ATC). Methods The clinical data of 108 ATC patients treated at our institution from January 1981 to April 2009 and follow-up results were retrospectively reviewed.Results The median survival time of 108 patients was 6 months.The overall 1-year,2-year,5-year survival rate was 40.3％,30.9％ and 21.9％ respectively.Univariate analysis showed the factors influencing the prognosis of ATC patients were tumor size, distant metastases, stage,leukocytosis, radiotherapy, local resection, postoperative radiotherapy and multimodality therapy.Multivariate analysis indicated that tumor size,stage,leukocytosis and radiotherapy were independently associated with the prognosis. Conclusions Anaplastic thyroid carcinoma is rare but highly aggressive malignancy with poor prognosis. ATC patients should receive multimodality therapy,especially local resection and postoperative radiotherapy.Even inoperable patients could benefit from radiotherapy. Key words: Thyroid neoplasms ; Prognosis; Therapy