Successful treatment of paraganglioma with sorafenib: a case report and brief review of the literature

• Main Authors: Lin Y, Li Q, Huang W, Jia X, Jiang H, Gao Y
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Dove Medical Press 2013-11-01
• Series: OncoTargets and Therapy
• Online Access: http://www.dovepress.com/successful-treatment-of-paraganglioma-with-sorafenib-a-case-report-and-a14883

Yun Lin,1,* Qun Li,1,* Wei Huang,1 Xinyan Jia,1 Hong Jiang,1 Yong Gao,1 Qi Li1,21Department of Oncology, Shanghai East Hospital, 2Department of Oncology, Shanghai First People's Hospital, Shanghai, People's Republic of China*These authors contributed equally to this work, and are joint first authorsIntroduction: To date, no effective systemic therapies have been made available for paraganglioma. However, multiple mutations in susceptibility genes have been identified that are potential targets for sorafenib, an oral multitargeted tyrosine-kinase inhibitor.Case presentation: We report the case of a 69-year-old Chinese man with mediastinal paraganglioma that had metastasized to the bone. The paraganglioma responded to sorafenib, a novel multi-tyrosine kinase inhibitor that targets angiogenesis, the Raf-kinase pathway, the platelet-derived growth factor Ret, and c-Kit. The patient was diagnosed as having paraganglioma after biopsy of the mediastinal mass. We first treated the patient with radiotherapy. Then he tolerated an etoposide-and-cisplatin chemotherapy regimen. Subsequently, he received 6 months of maintenance treatment with sorafenib (400 mg twice daily). A dramatic reduction in tumor volume was observed. At present, the patient has achieved a partial response, and his clinical status remains unchanged.Conclusion: We suggest that sorafenib should be further investigated in the management of patients with paraganglioma.Keywords: sorafenib, paraganglioma, molecular-targeted drug