Purpose  

Retinoic acid presently is the most advanced agent able to improve the efficacy of radioiodine therapy in differentiated thyroid carcinoma. In order to identify compounds with higher efficacy a panel of pharmacologically well-characterized compounds with antitumour action in solid cancer cell lines was screened.

Methods  

The effects of the compounds on iodide uptake, cell number, proliferation and apoptosis were evaluated.

Results  

In general, compounds were more effective in cell lines derived from more aggressive tumours. The effectiveness in terms of number of responsive cell lines and maximal increase in iodide uptake achieved decreased in the order: APHA > valproic acid ≈ sirolimus ≈ arsenic trioxide > retinoic acid ≈ lovastatin > apicidine ≈ azacytidine ≈ retinol ≈ rosiglitazone ≈ bortezomib.

Conclusion  

We hypothesize that testing of cells from primary tumours or metastases in patients may be a way to identify compounds with optimum therapeutic efficacy for individualized treatment.