The U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced Friday that it has approved a drug to treat patients with the most common type of thyroid cancer, Reuters reported.

Japan's Eisai Co Ltd's Lenvima was cleared for use in patients with progressive, differentiated thyroid cancer (DTC) whose disease progressed despite receiving radioactive iodine therapy (radioactive iodine refractory disease).

DTC is a cancerous growth of the thyroid gland which is located in the neck and helps regulate the body's metabolism. Lenvima is a kinase inhibitor, which works by blocking certain proteins from helping cancer cells grow and divide.

"The development of new therapies to assist patients with refractory disease is of high importance to the FDA," Richard Pazdur, director of the Office of Hematology and Oncology Products in the FDA's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, said in a statement. "Today's approval gives patients and healthcare professionals a new therapy to help slow the progression of DTC."

The most common side effects of Lenvima were high blood pressure (hypertension), fatigue, diarrhea, joint and muscle pain (arthralgia/myalgia), decreased appetite, decreased weight, nausea, inflammation of the lining of the mouth (stomatitis), headache, vomiting, excess protein in the urine (proteinuria), swelling and pain in the palms, hands and/or the soles of the feet (palmar-plantar erythrodysesthesia syndrome), abdominal pain and changes in voice volume or quality (dysphonia).

Lenvima was reviewed under the FDA's priority review program, which provides for an expedited review of drugs that, if approved, would provide significant improvement in safety or effectiveness in the treatment of a serious condition.

The National Cancer Institute estimates that 62,980 Americans were diagnosed with thyroid cancer and 1,890 died from the disease in 2014.