Anaplastic Thyroid Carcinoma Research Consortium of Japan (ATCCJ)

Council members
Iwao Sugitani 1), Naoyoshi Onoda 2), Ken-ichi Ito 3), Shinichi Suzuki 4)
1: Department of Endocrine Surgery, Nippon Medical School, Tokyo Japan
2: Department of Surgical Oncology, Osaka City University Graduate School of Medicine, Osaka Japan
3: Department of Surgery II, Shinshu University, Matsumoto Japan
4: Department of Thyroid and Endocrinology, Fukushima Medical University School of Medicine, Fukushima Japan

Address requests for correspondence to: Professor Iwao Sugitani
Department of Endocrine Surgery, Nippon Medical School,
1-1-5, Sendagi, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-8603, Japan
TEL: 03-5814-6219  FAX:03-5685-0985 E-mail: isugitani@nms.ac.jp

Anaplastic Thyroid Carcinoma Research Consortium of Japan (ATCCJ) was established in 2009 aiming to a) accumulate clinical data of ATC nationwide and to form authentic large database, b) conduct nationwide clinical trials, c) collaborate with basic scientists. The precise clinical data, including the therapeutic methods and outcome, of over 1,000 cases from 55 institutes had been accumulated in January 2015 to form the world largest database of ATC.
By analyzing the data, the 6 months disease specific survival was calculated as 60, 45, and 19% in stage IVA, B, and C disease, respectively. Age over 70, acute symptoms, leukocytosis, and tumor diameter over 5 cm, extrathyroidal invasion, and distant metastasis were revealed to be significantly poorer prognostic factors [1]. Survival after surgery was significantly better when curative resection was accomplished [2], or when the disease was observed incidentally during pathological examination after surgery [3]. Extra-beam radiation therapy contributed longer survival. At the same time we found that there were considerable numbers of cases misdiagnosed and treated as ATC. Those cases commonly survived long after treatments [4]. The information should be important for conducting therapeutic strategy. Still, the meaning of chemotherapy was controversial. Therefore, a nationwide prospective clinical study to evaluate the feasibility of weekly paclitaxel administration was conducted [5]. The entrée ended on March 2014, and the data was presented in ITC 2015 at Orlando [6].
We are planning for new clinical trials, and for establishing tissue bank at this moment.

Our website is  http://www.atccj.com

1. Sugitani I, Miyauchi A, Sugino K, Okamoto T, Yoshida A, Suzuki S. Prognostic factors and treatment outcomes for anaplastic thyroid carcinoma: ATC Research Consortium of Japan cohort study of 677 patients. World J Surg. 2012 Jun;36(6):1247-54. doi: 10.1007/s00268-012-1437-z.
2. Sugitani I, Hasegawa Y, Sugasawa M, Tori M, Higashiyama T, Miyazaki M, Hosoi H, Orita Y, Kitano H. Super-radical surgery for anaplastic thyroid carcinoma: a large cohort study using the Anaplastic Thyroid Carcinoma Research Consortium of Japan database. Head Neck. 2014 Mar;36(3):328-33. doi: 10.1002/hed.23295.
3. Yoshida A, Sugino K, Sugitani I, Miyauchi A. Anaplastic thyroid carcinomas incidentally found on postoperative pathological examination. World J Surg. 2014  Sep;38(9):2311-6. doi: 10.1007/s00268-014-2536-9.
4. Hirokawa M, et al. paper submitted.
5. Onoda N, Sugitani I, Higashiyama T, Hara H, Ito K, Kammori M, Sugino K, Suzuki S, Toda K, Yoshida A, Miyauchi A. Concept and design of a nationwide prospective  feasibility/efficacy/safety study of weekly paclitaxel for patients with pathologically confirmed anaplastic thyroid cancer (ATCCJ-PTX-P2). BMC Cancer. 2015 Jun 20;15:475. doi: 10.1186/s12885-015-1490-8.
6. Onoda N, Sugino K, Higashiyama T, Kammori M, Ito K, Yoshida A, Suzuki S, Hara H, Miyauchi A, Sugitani I. WEEKLY PACLITAXEL ADMINISTRATION IN PATIENTS WITH ANAPLASTIC THYROID CARCINOMA. A NATIONWIDE PROSPECTIVE CLINICAL STUDY. Thyroid. October 2015, 25(S1):A360. (Onoda N, et al. paper submitted.)

ATC Research Consortium Japan (Japan)

MD Anderson Cancer Center (USA)