Chen CQ, Huang MY, Pan M, Chen QQ, Wei FF, Huang H. Thymic carcinoid with multiple bone metastases: A case report. World J Clin Cases 2024; 12(13): 2275-2280 [PMID: 38808334 DOI: 10.12998/wjcc.v12.i13.2275]
Corresponding Author of This Article
Hui Huang, MD, Doctor, Department of Oncology, People’s Hospital of Guilin, No. 12 Wenming Road, Guilin 541000, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, China. huanghui25002@163.com
Research Domain of This Article
Oncology
Article-Type of This Article
Case Report
Open-Access Policy of This Article
This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Chun-Qiao Chen, Ming-Yue Huang, Min Pan, Qiu-Qiu Chen, Fei-Fei Wei, Hui Huang, Department of Oncology, People’s Hospital of Guilin, Guilin 541000, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, China
Co-first authors: Chun-Qiao Chen and Ming-Yue Huang.
Author contributions: Chen CQ and Huang H designed the research; Chen CQ, Huang MY, Pan M and Chen QQ performed the research; Wei FF analyzed the data; Chen CQ, Huang MY and Huang H wrote the paper; Chen CQ and Huang MY contributed equally to the manuscript.
Supported byGuangxi Guilin Science and Technology Fund, No. 20190218-7-6.
Informed consent statement: Informed written consent was obtained from the patient for publication of this report and any accompanying images.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest to disclose.
CARE Checklist (2016) statement: The authors have read the CARE Checklist (2016), and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the CARE Checklist (2016).
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Hui Huang, MD, Doctor, Department of Oncology, People’s Hospital of Guilin, No. 12 Wenming Road, Guilin 541000, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, China. huanghui25002@163.com
Received: December 23, 2023 Peer-review started: December 23, 2023 First decision: January 30, 2024 Revised: February 9, 2024 Accepted: March 28, 2024 Article in press: March 28, 2024 Published online: May 6, 2024 Processing time: 123 Days and 23.8 Hours
Abstract
BACKGROUND
Thymic carcinoid (TC) is a rare entity among anterior mediastinal malignancies. TCs are neuroendocrine carcinomas that constitute approximately 2%–5% of all thymic epithelial tumors.
CASE SUMMARY
The study reported a rare TC with multiple bone metastases. A 77-year-old man presented with a 2-month history of lower back pain and weight loss of 5 kg. Magnetic resonance imaging scans revealed damage to the lumbar spine, sacrocaudal vertebrae and iliac crest, suggesting bone metastasis; computed tomography (CT) scan of the thorax showed a calcified anterior mediastinal mass; positron emission tomography-CT demonstrated multiple abnormal bone signals; and laboratory work-up showed no endocrine abnormalities. Fine-needle aspiration biopsy revealed predominantly single small, round to oval cells with scant cytoplasm and some loose clusters, suggesting endocrine manifestations. The pathological diagnosis was atypical carcinoid, which tend to originate from the thymus and was classified as intermediate-highly invasive. The patient underwent anlotinib-targeted therapy. Anlotinib (12 mg) was administered daily for 2 wk, after which the patient was allowed to rest for 21 d. Follow-up CT after one year demonstrated that the tumor had shrunk by approximately 29% after therapy. Treatment has a long stable disease benefit of more than 2.5 years.
CONCLUSION
These findings demonstrated that anlotinib is a promising treatment regimen for patients with TC and multiple bone metastases.
Core Tip: Here, we report a 77-year-old man diagnosed with thymic carcinoid (TC) with multiple bone metastases, and the study reports the rapid contraction of thymoid carcinoma after therapy with the multitargeted tyrosine kinase inhibitor anlotinib. The treatment has shown good efficacy, with a long stable disease benefit of more than 2.5 years (until March 2022). These findings demonstrated that anlotinib is a promising treatment regimen for TC tumors with multiple bone metastases.
