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CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 · Indian J Med Paediatr Oncol 2018; 39(02): 219-226
DOI: 10.4103/ijmpo.ijmpo_91_17
Review Article

Cancer of Unknown Primary: Opportunities and Challenges

L K Rajeev
Department of Medical Oncology, Kidwai Cancer Institute, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India
,
Vikas Asati
Department of Medical Oncology, Kidwai Cancer Institute, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India
,
K N Lokesh
Department of Medical Oncology, Kidwai Cancer Institute, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India
,
A H Rudresh
Department of Medical Oncology, Kidwai Cancer Institute, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India
,
Suresh Babu
Department of Medical Oncology, Kidwai Cancer Institute, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India
,
Linu Abraham Jacob
Department of Medical Oncology, Kidwai Cancer Institute, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India
,
D Lokanatha
Department of Medical Oncology, Kidwai Cancer Institute, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India
,
Govind Babu
Department of Medical Oncology, Kidwai Cancer Institute, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India
,
K C Lakshmaiah
Department of Medical Oncology, Kidwai Cancer Institute, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India
› Author Affiliations Financial support and sponsorship Nil.
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Abstract

Cancer of unknown primary (CUP) is defined as histologically proven metastatic tumors whose primary site cannot be identified during pretreatment evaluation. Among all malignancies, 3%–5% remained as CUP even after the extensive radiological and pathological workup. Immunohistochemistry and molecular gene expression tumor profiling are being utilized to predict the tissue of origin. Unfortunately, the survival of these patients remains poor (6–9 months) except in 20% of patients who belong to a favorable subset (12–36 months). There is a need to understand the basic biology and to identify the molecular pathways which can be targeted with small molecules. This article reviews our current approach as well as treatment evolution occurred in the past three decades.

Keywords

Cancer of unknown primary - empirical chemotherapy - immunohistochemistry - molecular tumor profiling


Publication History

Article published online:
23 June 2021

© 2018. Indian Society of Medical and Paediatric Oncology. This is an open access article published by Thieme under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonDerivative-NonCommercial-License, permitting copying and reproduction so long as the original work is given appropriate credit. Contents may not be used for commercial purposes, or adapted, remixed, transformed or built upon. (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/.)

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