Endocrine Abstracts

It is still debated if the coexistence of papillary thyroid cancer (PTC) with a thyroid autoimmune process is associated with a better or worst outcome. Moreover, though a direct relationship between oncogenes and the activation of a pro-inflammatory program has been documented, the genetic background of PTCs with associated autoimmunity is not known.Aim of the present study was to to investigate the clinical and molecular features of PTCs associated or ...

Many studies demonstrated that somatic BRAF gene mutation analysis increases diagnostic accuracy for papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC), even from very small samples. The gold standard for point mutations research is direct sequencing, that implies DNA extraction, PCR with specific primers, sequencing reaction and run on an automatic sequencer. This is an expensive and time consuming method, and the possible contamination with wild-type DNA not coming from the nodule significan...

Fetal cells enter the maternal circulation during pregnancy and can persist in the maternal blood or tissues for decades, creating a physiological microchimerism. Since papillary thyroid cancer (PTC) is more frequent in female gender and it is the second more frequent tumor during pregnancy, the role of persisting microchimeric cells has been investigated. Tumour tissue specimens were obtained from 62 women with PTC, 41 of whom had at least one male child before the diagnosis ...

TERT promoter mutations (chr5: 1 295 228C>T e chr5: 1 295 250C>T) were recently described in thyroid tumors, with a prevalence ranging 8–25% in papillary thyroid cancer (PTC). We and others reported that these mutations strongly associate with a poor outcome in differentiated thyroid cancers. Aim of the present study was to further investigate the prognostic role of both TERT promoter (TERTMUT) and BRAF<...

Thyroid cancer is highly prevalent in women aged 15–44 years, suggesting that in females the fertile age could be regarded as a risk factor. Consistently, in the last decades epidemiological and experimental findings indicated a possible role of oestrogens in the development and progression of differentiated thyroid tumours. We studied the expression of oestrogen receptor α (ER α) and Progesteron receptor (PR) in 182 female and male patients with papillary thyro...

The anti-CD20 antibody Rituximab (RTX) induces peripheral B cells depletion. Aim of the present study was to evaluate changes of lymphocytes after RTX therapy, administered at the dosage of 1000 mg twice at 2-week interval, in 10 patients with Graves’ disease, 8 of whom had associated ophthalmopathy (TAO). In all patients, we studied the standard immunophenotypic panel before therapy and monthly for up to 2 years. Total CD20+ (and CD19+) cell depletion was observed after ...

We previously described a significant response to RTX treatment in patients with active TAO, with no effect on TRAb and hyperthyroidism. In order to study the effect of RTX in the orbit, we analyzed the orbital tissues of 9 patients with TAO at decompression after RTX (n.2) or other treatments. Decompression was carried out in 2 patients for sight threatening optic neuropathy and in 7 for correction of proptosis. Of the RTX treated patients, one was decompressed after 12 month...

Recent advances in the molecular classification of papillary thyroid cancer (PTC) have improved the diagnostic work-up and the care of patients with thyroid nodules and cancer, highlighting the need to routinely add information on the genetic pattern to the classification of cancer. The genomic background of a large series of 208 PTCs followed at a single Center was analysed by a custom MA genotyping platform (PTC-MA), which allows the simultaneous detection of 19 genetic alte...

Telomerase is a ribonucleoprotein polymerase that maintains telomere ends and plays a role in cellular senescence, being repressed in postnatal somatic cells. Mutations C228T and C250T of the telomerase reverse transcriptase (TERT) were recently reported in human cancers. In thyroid cancer, TERT mutations are more frequent in aggressive histotypes, but very few data are available about the potential correlations with clinical features in papillary and follicular thyroid cancer...