Searchable abstracts of presentations at key conferences in endocrinology
Endocrine Abstracts (2009) 20 P126

Lab. of Molecular Endocrinology, University of Palermo, DOSAC, Palermo, Italy.


Anaplastic thyropid carcinoma (ATC) is one of the most aggressive endocrine tumors with morphological features of undifferentiated neoplasm. Patients with ATC have a poor prognosis with a mean survival time of 2–6 months. Surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy do not improve survival rate. Bisphosphonates, analogs of endogenous pyrophosphates in which a carbon atom replaces the central oxygen atom, are successful agents for the prevention and treatment of postmenopausal osteoporosis and also an emerging class of drugs mostly used in the palliative care of cancer patients. Our aim was to investigate the in vitro activity of different bisphosphonates – clodronate, pamidronate, alendronate and zoledronic acid -, in four human anaplastic thyroid cell lines. For this purpose, we studied KAT-18, SW1736, 8505C and C643 cell lines by MTT assay and flow citometry (propidium iodide) after addition of different bisphosphonates ranging from 0 to 100 μM. A cell growth reduction in all anaplastic cell lines treated with pamidronate, alendronate and zoledronic acid at different concentrations was observed. Reduction of viability was founding cytometric analysis (10.6%, 18.8% and 42.51% respectively). Apoptosis was also assessed by DNA laddering. Our preliminary data confirm that the bisphosphonates can induce apoptosis in anapalstic thyroid carcinoma.

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