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4 treatment settings, 4 with more than one named option. Each section lays out the options the standard of care names, what each is for, the trials behind them with their recorded results, the side effects and cautions on record, and questions to ask. Built from the cancer page's standard-of-care rows; nothing here is advice for your case.
Open en bloc adrenalectomy by an experienced surgeon with locoregional lymphadenectomy; adjuvant mitotane for high-risk (Ki-67 >10%, stage III, R1) for 2-5 years; adjuvant radiotherapy for R1.
A relative of the insecticide DDT that is the only drug specific to adrenal cortex cancer; it needs blood-level monitoring and permanent steroid replacement.
IMRT and IGRT shape the radiation beam to the tumour's outline from multiple angles and check the patient's position with a scan before every session, so surrounding organs receive less dose. Fewer, larger doses are now standard in breast and prostate cancer, but a low-dose bath still spreads across normal tissue.
No trial record is attached to this row yet. The trials tab lists what is recruiting and the landmark trials for this cancer.
Add these to your appointment list, or take the full question set for this cancer.
EDP-M (etoposide, doxorubicin, cisplatin + mitotane) ×6-8 with surgery for responders; streptozocin-mitotane second line.
Etoposide is a chemotherapy from the mayapple plant, essential to curing testicular cancer (BEP), treating small-cell lung cancer, lymphomas, childhood sarcomas and leukaemias, and used in transplant conditioning.
The red chemotherapy drug from a soil bacterium that is still the backbone of treatment for sarcoma, lymphoma and breast cancer, limited by cumulative heart damage.
Cisplatin is the original platinum chemotherapy, discovered by accident in 1965; it cures testicular cancer and makes radiation work better in cervical and head and neck cancer.
A relative of the insecticide DDT that is the only drug specific to adrenal cortex cancer; it needs blood-level monitoring and permanent steroid replacement.
No trial record is attached to this row yet. The trials tab lists what is recruiting and the landmark trials for this cancer.
Add these to your appointment list, or take the full question set for this cancer.
Mitotane monotherapy (target level 14-20 mg/L) with glucocorticoid replacement; local therapies (ablation, radiotherapy) for oligometastases.
A relative of the insecticide DDT that is the only drug specific to adrenal cortex cancer; it needs blood-level monitoring and permanent steroid replacement.
Thermal ablation kills a tumour with heat or cold delivered through a needle, with no incision required.
Stereotactic body radiotherapy converges multiple beams with sub-millimetre accuracy to deliver tumour-destroying doses in one to five outpatient sessions, doing the job of surgery for inoperable early lung cancer and for metastases in liver, spine and brain. Tumour size and location limit its use, and late toxicity is a concern near the central airways.
No trial record is attached to this row yet. The trials tab lists what is recruiting and the landmark trials for this cancer.
Add these to your appointment list, or take the full question set for this cancer.
Pembrolizumab, cabozantinib, gemcitabine-capecitabine; control hormone excess; clinical trials.
Pembrolizumab is a PD-1 blocking antibody approved in more than 40 settings, from melanoma and lung cancer to the first tumour-agnostic approval for mismatch-repair-deficient tumours in 2017, and before and after surgery in triple-negative breast cancer. A subcutaneous form arrived in 2025, and it is the backbone partner for ADCs and personalised neoantigen vaccines.
A pill that blocks both blood-vessel growth and the MET escape pathway, used in kidney, liver, thyroid and, since 2025, neuroendocrine cancers.
No trial record is attached to this row yet. The trials tab lists what is recruiting and the landmark trials for this cancer.
| Side effect | Any grade | Grade 3+ |
|---|---|---|
| Hypothyroidism (immune-mediated) · Pooled monotherapy data, >2,800 patients | 8% | - |
| Pneumonitis (immune-mediated) · Pooled monotherapy data, >2,800 patients | 3.4% | - |
| Colitis (immune-mediated) · Pooled monotherapy data, >2,800 patients | 1.7% | - |
| Hepatitis (immune-mediated) · Pooled monotherapy data, >2,800 patients | 0.7% | - |
Rates from the label or pivotal trial as recorded on the product page; each grade 3+ figure links to its source.
Add these to your appointment list, or take the full question set for this cancer.