UNC Lineberger leading new trial for anaplastic thyroid cancer

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. (WTVD) -- UNC Lineberger is leading a new trial into a possible treatment option for anaplastic thyroid cancer.

"This is the one cancer diagnosis that I personally dread having to give that news," said Dr. Siddharth Sheth, an Associate Professor of Oncology at UNC, who is co-leading a multidisciplinary team in the study.

According to the American Thyroid Association, an estimated 500 to 800 cases are diagnosed annually, less than 2% of all patients.

"The truth is that many oncologists will go through their whole career and treat one anaplastic thyroid cancer. And so the awareness, the research, the funding for it is quite poor," Sheth said.

The Cleveland Clinic reports that the average survival rate is just five to six months after diagnosis, with fewer than 20% of patients surviving more than a year.

It's a group that includes Belinda Duggins, who experienced shortness of breath and difficulty swallowing before undergoing testing in October.

"I sung in church, and I went from sounding decent to sounding like a cat walking on a hot tin roof," said Duggins.

Duggins, who is a registered nurse, noted her family had a history of thyroid issues, but no cases of thyroid cancer.

"It's taken time to listen to your body because your body will give you signs and symptoms and everything. But by the same token, we have to be out there and we have to be visible and making people aware of this, that this is something that is treatable and that you can come out on the other side," said Duggins.

She has undergone surgery, radiation, chemotherapy, and is now using immunotherapy. Duggins has responded well to her treatment and is hoping to draw greater attention to both the trial and the disease.

"I had a community to help support me. I have my faith. But what about the people that don't? And I want to be something positive for them to let them know, hey, look at me. If I beat this, you can, too," said Duggins.

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Sheth is hopeful the study will provide valuable data for a new regimen to improve survival rates.

"The oral chemotherapy is called Zanzalintinib, and it targets a pathway called tyrosine kinase inhibition, and that cuts off the blood vessel formation for the tumor. We're combining it with a type of therapy called immunotherapy, which many patients with cancer are now getting treated with. There's data that if you combine those two therapies, they work very well together. Our goal and our hope of this trial is that by giving this therapy prior to surgery, we can help control the size of the tumor, shrink it, and make patients better candidate for becoming operable," Sheth said.

UNC Lineberger is partnering with Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, working to identify 12 patients, and hopes to complete enrollment within the next year.

"Many of these patients will present at time of diagnosis with their cancer being too large or unsafe because it's involving blood vessels or invading other critical structures that surgery is not a possibility. If we can shrink the tumor down, we can get them back to surgery, and it is known with strong data that patients with anaplastic thyroid cancer that get surgery have the best outcomes," Sheth said.

"Anything I can do to help with the trial, I'm here for," said Duggins.

September is Thyroid Cancer Awareness Month.