Endocrine Abstracts

Thyroid cancers are the solid tumours of mankind with the lowest mutational load. This holds particularly true for papillary carcinomas (PTC) whose pathogenesis appears to be understandable by a limited number of genetic alterations (That is why they are so frequently multifocal). The utilization of NGS allowed the establishment of three molecular subtypes of well differentiated thyroid carcinomas: BRAF-life (Conventional and tall cell PTC, mainly), RAS-like (Follicular varian...

The most frequent problems of the morphological diagnosis of thyroid tumors with clinical relevance will be discussed under four major headings:(a) Differential diagnosis of follicular patterned lesions: follicular adenoma (encompassing adenomatous lesions of multinodular goitre), follicular carcinoma and follicular variant of papillary carcinoma. In this setting we will discuss the role of cytology (nuclear features), immunohistochemistry (Ki67/MIB1, CK...

Hashimoto’s thyroiditis (HT) is the most common chronic autoimmune thyroid disease, which is characterized by alteration of the thyroid function. HT is a multifactorial disorder and several candidate genetic loci have been identified as contributing to HT. The transcription factor Nrf2, encoded by the NFE2L2 gene, is an important regulator of the cellular protection against oxidative stress. The relevance of selenoproteins in follicular thyroid cell physiology and in mole...

Thyroid cancer therapy is based on surgery followed by radioiodine treatment of tumor remnants and metastases. The incorporation of radioiodine by cancer cells is mediated by sodium iodide symporter (NIS), normally present in thyroid follicular cells’ membrane. We studied the expression of NIS in a series of 229 thyroid primary tumors using real time PCR and immunohistochemistry, and searched for possible associations between NIS expression and clinicopathological feature...