Novel biologic therapies for thymic epithelial tumors

Abstract

Thymic epithelial tumors (TETs) are comprised of a spectrum of histologically distinct tumors that also exhibit differences at the molecular level (1). Surgery is the mainstay of treatment but locally advanced and metastatic TETs can be inoperable and are associated with worse survival (2). Although multi-agent chemotherapy is associated with objective response rates (ORR) of 50-90% in the front-line setting [e.g., cisplatin, doxorubicin, and cyclophosphamide (CAP) (3), doxorubicin, cisplatin, vincristine, and cyclophosphamide (ADOC) (4)], no standard systemic treatments exist for relapsed or refractory TETs. Several biological agents have been evaluated in TETs in small phase II trials as illustrated in Table 1. © 2014 Chen, Gharwan and Thomas.