Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2020 Jul-Sep;61(3):681-686.
doi: 10.47162/RJME.61.3.06.

Medullary thyroid cancer: molecular factors, management and treatment

Efstathios Pavlidis  1 , Konstantinos Sapalidis, Fotios Chatzinikolaou, Isaak Kesisoglou
Affiliations
Review

Medullary thyroid cancer: molecular factors, management and treatment

Efstathios Pavlidis et al. Rom J Morphol Embryol. 2020 Jul-Sep.

Abstract

Medullary thyroid cancer (MTC) is an infrequent neuroendocrine tumor, which amounts to 3-5% of all thyroid malignancies. Approximately 75-80% of MTCs are sporadic neoplasms. The rest of 20-25% are familial cases that belong to multiple endocrine neoplasia (MEN) syndromes, specifically MEN2 and MEN3. These cases of familial MTC are attributed to an activating germline mutation of a tyrosine kinase receptor gene, the rearranged during transfection (RET) proto-oncogene, located on chromosome 10q11.21. These mutations are also found in some cases of sporadic MTC. This review sets forth in summary the accepted guidelines and approaches regarding diagnosis, management, and treatment of MTC. Surgical resection is the standard care, and an early, prophylactic intervention is performed in genetic cases. Further investigation and understanding of the molecular pathways involved in the growth and advancement of MTC is required in order to provide efficient therapy in cases of progressive disease.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interests.

References

    1. Segura S, Ramos-Rivera G, Suhrland M. Educational case: endocrine neoplasm: medullary thyroid carcinoma. Acad Pathol. 2018;5:2374289518775722–2374289518775722. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Azar FK, Lee SL, Rosen JE. Medullary thyroid cancer: an update for surgeons. Am Surg. 2015;81(1):1–8. - PubMed
    1. Hazard JB, Hawk WA, Crile G. Medullary (solid) carcinoma of the thyroid; a clinicopathologic entity. J Clin Endocrinol Metab. 1959;19(1):152–161. - PubMed
    1. Hu MI, Ying AK, Jimenez C. Update on medullary thyroid cancer. Endocrinol Metab Clin North Am. 2014;43(2):423–442. - PubMed
    1. Galofré JC, Santamaría Sandi J, Capdevila J, Navarro González E, Zafón Llopis C, Ramón Y, Gómez Sáez JM, Jiménez-Fonseca P, Riesco Eizaguirre G, Grande E. Consensus on the management of advanced medullary thyroid carcinoma on behalf of the Working Group of Thyroid Cancer of the Spanish Society of Endocrinology (SEEN) and the Spanish Task Force Group for Orphan and Infrequent Tumors (GETHI) Endocrinol Nutr. 2015;62(4):e37–e46. - PubMed

MeSH terms

Supplementary concepts