Long-term survivors among patients with cancer of unknown primary

Abstract

There is a general conception among oncologists that CUP patients behave poorly to treatment and carry a dismal survival. In this paper we are trying to elucidate the different groups of CUP patients and to describe in details the diagnostic and therapeutic management of the prognostically favorable patients. Clinicians should be aware that the favorable CUP cases must be treated according to recent guidelines with either specific locoregional and/or systemic therapy and that they commonly enjoy a long survival. Survival data of 219 CUP patients treated at Ioannina University Hospital from 1995 until 2011 are also presented.