Medical therapy of endocrine carcinomas. Part I: Thyroid carcinomas, adrenal carcinomas and parathyroid carcinomas

Background: The incidence of endocrine carcinomas is about 5.3 per 100,000 population. Most frequent are malignancies of of the thyroid gland(about 89 %). Therapy: Because of low incidences and missing prospective studies as well as radiotherapy and chemothrerapy resistance, general accepted therapy guid elines for endocrines carcinomas are still missing. Surgery and radionucleo tide treatment is generally the first-line therapy. Hormonal active carcino mas can be additionally treated with special substances such as octreotide and mitotane. Chemotherapy is frequently not effective. Widely used substan ces are cyclophosphamide, cisplatin, doxorubicine, dacarbazine, vincristine and etoposide. This is the first part of the review will present medical therapies of thyr oid carcinomas, adrenal carcinomas and parathyroid carcinomas. The second p art inone of the next issues will focus on less frequent endocrine carcinom as of the gastrointestinal tract.