5 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.
Mitotane from diagnosis with glucocorticoid replacement; adrenal enzyme inhibitors (metyrapone, osilodrostat, ketoconazole) for cortisol excess; thromboprophylaxis and infection vigilance.
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.
No side-effect rates or interaction flags are recorded for these options yet. The side-effect lookup and interaction checker cover the products that have them.
Add these to your appointment list, or take the full question set for this cancer.
Mitotane alone, with resection, thermal ablation or stereotactic radiotherapy of limited metastases.
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.
Etoposide, doxorubicin and cisplatin with mitotane (EDP-M, FIRM-ACT).
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.
Cytotoxic chemotherapy drugs (platinums, antimetabolites, microtubule agents and topoisomerase inhibitors) kill rapidly dividing cells by damaging DNA or the mitotic spindle. They still cure testicular cancer, lymphoma and leukaemia, and they are the warhead inside antibody-drug conjugates, but a narrow margin between effective and toxic doses is their limitation.
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.
Gemcitabine with capecitabine; cabozantinib; pembrolizumab, especially for mismatch-repair-deficient tumours; streptozocin-mitotane; clinical trials.
A versatile chemotherapy used in pancreatic, bladder, lung, ovarian, breast and biliary cancers, in nasopharyngeal cancer, and as a bladder instillation.
Capecitabine (Xeloda) is a tablet form of the chemotherapy fluorouracil. It is a backbone of treatment for bowel cancer and a standard option in advanced breast cancer.
A pill that blocks both blood-vessel growth and the MET escape pathway, used in kidney, liver, thyroid and, since 2025, neuroendocrine cancers.
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.
Immune checkpoint inhibitors are antibodies against CTLA-4, PD-1 or PD-L1 that release the brakes on T cells so they attack the cancer. They are approved in more than 20 tumour types and produce lasting, sometimes curative responses that chemotherapy rarely does, but most patients do not respond and autoimmune side effects are the cost.
Pills that block the specific enzyme a cancer relies on. Imatinib in 2001 proved a cancer could be switched off by design.
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.
Relacorilant with checkpoint inhibition for cortisol-secreting tumours; cabozantinib with immunotherapy; radiolabelled CYP11B tracers.
A first-in-class drug that blocks cortisol signalling in tumour cells, approved in 2026 for platinum-resistant ovarian cancer with chemotherapy.
A pill that blocks both blood-vessel growth and the MET escape pathway, used in kidney, liver, thyroid and, since 2025, neuroendocrine cancers.
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.
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.