Cancer of the endocrine glands are infrequent, and as other rare cancers, they require multidisciplinary discussions and collaborations to guide patient management, and to initiate prospective, innovative biological and clinical projects.

Rare endocrine cancer

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General information

Thyroid and adrenal tumours are endocrine malignancies usually cured with surgery at localised stage. However, they may recur locally, have a metastatic spread and become refractory to standard therapies, requiring expertise both in diagnosis (pathology, molecular biology) and treatment.
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Thyroid cancers

Thyroid cancers include radio-iodine refractory (RAIR) metastatic thyroid cancer (TC), metastatic medullary thyroid carcinoma (MTC) and anaplastic thyroid cancer (ATC). They come from different cellular origins, RAIR-TC and ATC deriving from follicular cells and MTC from C-cells.

Adrenal malignancies

Adrenal malignancies comprise adrenocortical carcinoma (ACC) and malignant pheochromocytoma or paraganglioma (PPGL) as defined by local or metastatic spread.
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These refractory/metastatic thyroid and adrenal tumours are managed within the reference centres gathered within the domain 6 of EURACAN. Although much progress remains to be made, collaborative efforts have already been initiated within EURACAN to improve the outcome of patients with relapsing and metastatic endocrine cancers. Given their rarity and molecular heterogeneity, which now guides therapeutic decisions, their management should be guided by reference centres, mostly within clinical trials. Clinical Practice Guidelines (CPGs) are being developed and reviewed by all stakeholders including scientific societies, and patient advocacy groups. Care is organised in Multidisciplinary Tumour Boards (MTBs) and collaborations with patient advocacy groups helped standardise information patient leaflets.