Sporadic ret-rearranged papillary carcinoma of the thyroid: A subset of slow growing, less aggressive thyroid neoplasms?

• Type: Article in International Scientific Journal
• Date: 1998

Authors

Soares, P (Author) Other; Fonseca, E (Author) Other; Wynford Thomas, D (Author) Other; Sobrinho Simoes, M (Author) FMUP

Journal

Title: Journal of Pathology

Vol. 185

Pages: 71-78

ISSN: 0022-3417

Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell

Indexing

ISI Web of Knowledge - 104 Citations

Scopus - 117 Citations

Scientific classification

FOS: Medical and Health sciences > Clinical medicine

Other information

Authenticus ID: P-001-81C

DOI: 10.1002/(sici)1096-9896(199805)185:1<71::aid-path42>3.0.co;2-s

Abstract (EN): Despite the large amount of information accumulated on the role played by vet activation in the oncogenesis of papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC), the biological and clinical significance of such activation 'in vivo' remains controversial. The aim of this study was to address some of the existing controversies by comparing two groups of unselected PTCs, one with and the other without ret rearrangement, with regard to several clinicopathological and biological features. Thirty-three PTCs mere selected at random, vet rearrangement was found in eight cases (24.2 per cent) using Southern blot analysis. The mean age of the patients with tumours displaying ret rearrangement (28 +/- 3.1 years) was significantly lower than that of the patients harbouring cases that did not present rearrangement (45 +/- 2.9 years). The large majority of the tumours with ret rearrangement displayed a papillary or mixed follicular-papillary pattern and very low proliferative activity. ret rearrangement correlated significantly with decreased cytoplasmic expression of E-cadherin. No significant differences were found regarding the gender of the patients, tumour size, multicentricity, extrathyroidal growth, vascular invasion, lymphocytic infiltration, lymph node involvement or the expression of E-cadherin (membrane), c-erb-B2, c-met, Bcl-2, and vimentin. It is proposed that sporadic PTCs harbouring a ret rearrangement occur frequently as slow growing, papillary, or predominantly papillary tumours that do not usually progress towards less differentiated neoplasms representing what might be described as a Bonsai phenotype. (C) 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Language: English

Type (Professor's evaluation): Scientific

No. of pages: 8