Endocrine Abstracts

BRAFV600E mutation is considered useful in recognizing thyroid cancer aggressiveness or poor prognosis particularly in certain variants of papillary thyroid cancinoma (PTC). A recent meta-analysis identified 12 cancer-versus-non cancer gene candidate as markers of thyroid cancer; among these TIMP-1 (tissue inhibitors of metalloproteinases) was found consistently up-regulated. Our aim was to evaluate BRAFV600E mutation and TIMP-1 expression in 14 PTC class...

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 o...

In the last years, a growing body of evidence supports the notion that tumors are organized in a hierarchy of heterogeneous cell populations with different biologic properties and that the capability to sustain tumor formation and growth exclusively resides in a small proportion of tumor cells, termed cancer stem cells (CSC). The existence of CSC was first proven in the context of acute myelogenous leukaemia, and subsequently verified in brain, breast, colon and prostate cance...

A strong evidence suggests the role of BRAFV600E mutation in determining the aggressiveness of thyroid cancer. To detect how the association of BRAF mutation could influence the aggressiveness of particular subtypes of thyroid tumors, we analysed a possible correlation between BRAFV600E and metalloproteinase (MMPs) activity, as its enhanced production could be an important determinant of tumor invasion. For this purpose, we investigated the activity and t...