Searchable abstracts of presentations at key conferences in endocrinology
Endocrine Abstracts (2012) 29 S61.1

ICEECE2012 Symposia New insights in thyroid cancer diagnosis (3 abstracts)

BRAF(T1799A) can be detected in the blood of papillary thyroid carcinoma patients and correlates with disease status

M. Zatelli


University of Ferrara, Ferrara, Italy.


The worldwide incidence of thyroid cancer has been increasing during the last years and is a public health concern because treatment of thyroid cancer implies high health costs and may raise overtreatment issues. On the other hand, effective medical treatment for advanced disease escaping radiometabolic treatment and not amenable for surgical approach is still lacking. Current methods of detection, decision making, prognostic indications, and monitoring rely on clinical, morphologic, and histopathologic characteristics. Therefore, precocious diagnosis is still a mainstay for thyroid cancer treatment in the early stages.

The activating BRAF(T1799A) mutation occurs in 45–80% of papillary thyroid cancers and is believed to cause the malignant transformation of the follicular cell. Detection of this mutation has been used to increase the diagnostic sensitivity of fine-needle aspiration biopsies of thyroid nodules suspected for malignancy and to provide a better staging, allowing detection of minimal disease metastatic to locoregional lymphnodes. In addition, BRAF(T1799A) mutation has been associated with unfavourable outcomes in retrospective studies.

Previous studies on melanoma have shown that circulating BRAFT1799A is indeed detectable and could potentially be used as a marker of prognosis and/or a surrogate for assessment of clinical response. The mutation has been more frequently found in metastatic tissue than in primary tumors. Therefore,the serum assay may be used in monitoring for disease progression. Accordingly, recent studies showed that detection of circulating BRAFT1799A might allow diagnosis of PTC with a blood test, identifying patients with minimal residual disease to be addressed to radioiodine remnant ablation, radioactive iodine therapy, or other adjuvant treatment measures. On the other hand, BRAFT1799A positivity in blood did not correlate with disease status/stage at the time of presentation and did not predict out come. Large-scale prospective studies are needed before circulating BRAFT1799A detection can become an accepted clinical tool for thyroid cancer screening and management.

Declaration of interest: The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest that could be perceived as prejudicing the impartiality of the research project.

Funding: This research did not receive any specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sector.

Volume 29

15th International & 14th European Congress of Endocrinology

European Society of Endocrinology 

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