Clinical efficacy of lenvatinib for the treatment of radioiodine-refractory thyroid carcinoma: A systematic review and meta-analysis of clinical trials

Abstract

Objective: To evaluate the efficacy of lenvatinib in the treatment of radioiodine-refractory thyroid carcinoma. Background: Thyroid carcinoma is one of the top ten carcinomas worldwide. Clinically, thyroid cancers are managed with resections and adjuvant therapy with radioiodine. However, radioiodine is not effective for radioiodine-refractory (RR) thyroid carcinoma in some patients. Lenvatinib is a multi-kinase inhibitor for the treatment of RR thyroid carcinoma. Several clinical trials showed its efficacy in prolonging progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS). Design, patients and measurements: A systematic search was done on databases (PubMed, Embase, MEDLINE, Cochrane) on 8 June 2020. Search keywords were lenvatinib, thyroid carcinoma and randomized controlled trials. Clinical trials fulfilling the SELECT protocol were selected to evaluate the efficacy of lenvatinib in terms of prolongation of PFS, OS and objective response rate (ORR). The risk ratio and distribution of grade 3 or above adverse events were documented. Results: Of the 3997 patients of mean age 62.5 years in fifteen selected studies, lenvatinib is associated with prolonged PFS (hazard ratio 0.24, 95% CI, 0.19-0.31, p