Palliation of advanced thyroid malignancies

White most thyroid cancers are stow-growing and have an excellent prognosis after appropriate treatment, a subset of thyroid cancers behave aggressively, and approximately 1500 individuals in the US will die of the disease in the year 2007. Advanced thyroid malignancies can cause distressing and life-threatening symptoms by local invasion in the neck, growth of distant metastases in the lung, bone, and other organs, and tumor production of bioactive substances in the case of medullary thyroid cancer. This article with review palliative modalities, including surgery, radioactive iodine, external beam radiation, and chemotherapy, as welt as novel targeted therapies, for the treatment of patients with advanced thyroid malignancies. (C) 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.