Vandetanib for aggressive and
symptomatic medullary thyroid cancer

Hari A Deshpande, Tobias Carling, Nabeela Khan, Elizabeth Holt5

Medullary thyroid cancer accounts for less than 10% of all thyroid cancers.

Aggressive metastatic forms of this disease however, are incurable and can cause significant

symptoms including diarrhea and pain. Hereditary and some sporadic forms of the disease

are characterized by a mutation of the proto-oncogene RET. This results in an abnormal growth

factor receptor that, in turn, allows the malignant cells to survive and metastasize. New tyrosine

kinase inhibitors have been shown to effectively target RET in vitro. One of the first of these

agents, vandetanib, has been evaluated in international Phase II and III clinical trials. In 2011,

vandetanib became the first agent approved by the US FDA for use in metastatic medullary

thyroid cancer. This article examines the clinical use of this agent

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