Adrenocortical cancer (ACC) is a rare and aggressive disease. Surgery has traditionally been the primary treatment for locally advanced disease with ongoing controversy around the optimal neoadjuvant and adjuvant treatment options. Unfortunately, local recurrence and the eventual development of metastatic disease is common and five-year survival rates are poor. While many trials have evaluated novel systemic agents to treat advanced adrenocortical cancer, only a few drugs have demonstrated any response at all. To date, only one drug, mitotane, is approved in the US for ACC and no regimen has clearly shown an increase in overall survival. In advanced metastatic or unresectable disease, data supports the first line regimen of EDP chemotherapy + mitotane as the primary treatment modality. In the second line, while data is limited, we would recommend consideration of immunotherapy using a PD(L)1 agent combined with a TKI/VEGF inhibitor or combination immunotherapy with PD1/CTLA-4 drugs. In all cases, we always prefer a clinical trial as available. This article reviews data from multiple studies evaluating novel systemic agents against ACC and discusses current systemic therapy combinations and ongoing clinical trials.
Keyphrases
- clinical trial
- squamous cell carcinoma
- papillary thyroid
- small cell lung cancer
- locally advanced
- electronic health record
- big data
- minimally invasive
- emergency department
- stem cells
- drug induced
- early stage
- squamous cell
- free survival
- systematic review
- mesenchymal stem cells
- bone marrow
- lymph node
- open label
- coronary artery disease
- lymph node metastasis
- advanced non small cell lung cancer
- tyrosine kinase
- data analysis
- surgical site infection