Prognosis
The overall 5-year survival rate of anaplastic thyroid cancer has been given as 7% or 14%, although the latter has been criticized as being overestimated.
Treatment of anaplastic-type carcinoma is generally palliative in its intent for a disease that is rarely cured and almost always fatal, with worse prognosis associated with large tumours, distant metastases, acute obstructive symptoms, and leukocytosis. Death is attributable to upper airway obstruction and suffocation in half of patients, and to a combination of complications of local and distant disease, or therapy, or both in the remainder.
Anaplastic thyroid cancer is extremely aggressive; in most cases death occurs in less than 1 year as a result of aggressive local growth and compromise of vital structures in the neck. ATC in most series has a median survival of 4 to 5 months from the time of diagnosis, with rare long-term survivors.
Read more about this topic: Anaplastic Thyroid Cancer