Clinical ScienceEvaluation of genetic biomarkers for distinguishing benign from malignant thyroid neoplasms
Section snippets
Patients and Methods
The study was approved by our institutional review board, and consent was obtained from all patients before testing. From October 2009 to June 2011, we included in our study all consecutive patients with thyroid nodules showing a follicular lesion of undetermined significance or atypical cells on undetermined significance, follicular neoplasm, and suspicion for malignancy with one of the following postoperative pathologies: follicular or Hürthle cell adenoma, follicular or Hürthle cell
Demographic data
A total of 52 patients were included in this study: 21 had FTAs, 12 had FTCs, and 19 had FV-PTCs on postoperative pathology. Women constituted the majority of patients in all groups (83%), and the mean age in years of the entire group was 53.3. A history of previous cancers, family history of thyroid disease, and history of hypo-/hyperthyroidism were similar between groups. Patients with a diagnosis of carcinoma on FNA were more likely to undergo total thyroidectomy or lobectomy with completion
Comments
FNA is essential in the workup of a thyroid nodule.1, 2 However, there are limitations of this technique's diagnostic capability for follicular lesions. The primary aim of this study was to validate specific genetic markers already established in the literature as possible biomarkers of thyroid malignancy and to distinguish between benign and malignant follicular thyroid disease in FNA specimens. Genetic markers have been identified as possible markers for FTC, but the methodologies are limited
References (18)
- et al.
Human telomerase reverse transcriptase (hTERT) gene expression in FNA samples from thyroid neoplasms
Cancer Lett
(2003) - et al.
Decreased relative expression level of trefoil factor 3 mRNA to galectin-3 mRNA distinguishes thyroid follicular carcinoma from adenoma
Cancer Lett
(2005) - et al.
HMGA2 mRNA expression correlates with the malignant phenotype in human thyroid neoplasias
Eur J Cancer
(2008) Clinical practice. The thyroid nodule
N Engl J Med
(2004)- et al.
Revised American Thyroid Association management guidelines for patients with thyroid nodules and differentiated thyroid cancer
Thyroid
(2009) Thyroid carcinoma
Lancet
(2003)- et al.
The atypia of undetermined significance/follicular lesion of undetermined significance:malignant ratio: a proposed performance measure for reporting in The Bethesda System for thyroid cytopathology
Cancer Cytopathol
(2012) - et al.
Human telomerase reverse transcriptase (hTERT) gene expression in thyroid neoplasms
Clin Cancer Res
(1999) - et al.
A six-gene model for differentiating benign from malignant thyroid tumors on the basis of gene expression
Surgery
(2005)
Cited by (0)
The authors declare no conflict of interest.