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Hope seen in rare thyroid cancer treatment

HOUSTON, Nov. 16 (UPI) -- A new treatment combining radiation, surgery and chemotherapy has been found to help patients with rare forms of thyroid cancer, U.S. researchers said.

Anaplastic thyroid carcinoma is a very rare but aggressive form of the disease, afflicting less than 5 percent of those diagnosed with thyroid cancer. In the past, most thyroid tumors could not be removed surgically and radiation and chemotherapy failed to improve survival, with most patients living less than six months after diagnosis.

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Researchers at the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston treated 30 patients, with an average age of 59, from 1990 to 2000. The cancer had spread in 26 patients to other areas, such as their trachea, lymph nodes and lungs. Surgery could not be performed on seven patients because the tumor had grown too large.

With patients receiving the three different treatments, median survival was 10 months with a 27 percent overall survival rate at three years. The study was published in the International Journal of Radiation Oncology Biology.

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