Abstract

Anaplastic thyroid carcinoma(ATC) is a rare, lethal disease with no effective systemic therapies. ATC usually manifests itself with the local symptoms due to a rapidly enlarging thyroid mass, that causing dysphagia, dysphonia or hoarseness, stridor, and dyspnea symptoms due to mass effect on the esophagus and trachea. We report the case of a 56 year-old woman who was referred to our hospital due to swelling in the neck. A palpable, hard, immobile tumor was observed in the left side of his neck in thyroid, along with a swollen, palpable, immobile lymph node. The patient underwent chemotherapy regimen as cisplatin 75 mg/m2/day at D1, doxorubicin 60 mg/m2/day D1, every 21 days) regimen as first-line therapy for six cycles. No mass was detected in F18- FDG-PET after six cycled of chemotherapy. Complete remission was achieved radiologically. The patient underwent surgery after two weeks. Total thyroidectomy, bilateral central and left modified radical cervical lymph node dissection were performed. A surgical complete R0 resection was achieved. The best results in terms of survival are obtained with a multidisciplinary treatment combining surgery, external beam radiotherapy and chemotherapy. Despite multidisciplinary treatment, responses to treatment are not promising. Neoadjuvant chemotherapy can be a preferable choice especially for the one who have a little chance for surgical complete R0 resection.