The treatment of thyroid cancer has promising prospects, mostly through the use of surgical or radioactive iodine therapy. However, some thyroid cancers, such as progressive radioactive iodine-refractory differentiated thyroid carcinoma, are not remediable with conventional types of treatment. In these cases, a treatment regimen with multi-kinase inhibitors is advisable. Unfortunately, clinical trials have shown a large number of patients, treated with multi-kinase inhibitors, being adversely affected by hypertension. This means that treatment of thyroid cancer with multi-kinase inhibitors prolongs progression-free and overall survival of patients, but a large number of patients experience hypertension as an adverse effect of the treatment. Whether the prolonged lifetime is sufficient to develop sequelae from hypertension is unclear, but late-stage cancer patients often have additional diseases, which can be complicated by the presence of hypertension. Since the exact mechanisms of the rise of hypertension in these patients are still unknown, the only available strategy is treating the symptoms. More studies determining the pathogenesis of hypertension as a side effect to cancer treatment as well as outcomes of dose management of cancer drugs are necessary to improve future therapy options for hypertension as an adverse effect to cancer therapy with multi-kinase inhibitors.
Keywords: hypertension; lenvatinib; multi-kinase inhibitors; sorafenib; sunitinib; thyroid cancer; vascular endothelial growth factor.