Background
Differentiation of benign from malignant-follicular thyroid lesions remains difficult AQ6
and the ability of the molecular markers to differentiate between them is still not
clear. The aim of this study is to evaluate the usefulness of insulin-like growth factor
II mRNA-binding protein 3 (IMP3) expression to distinguish benign from malignant
thyroid lesions.
Patients and methods
This is a retrospective study on 57 selected thyroid lesions designated as: seven
cases of Hashimoto thyroiditis, 10 cases of hyperplastic nodules, 15 cases of
follicular thyroid adenoma, 13 cases of conventional papillary thyroid carcinoma,
six cases of follicular variant of papillary thyroid carcinoma, and six cases of
follicular thyroid carcinoma. Immunohistochemistry was applied on formalin-fixed,
paraffin-embedded tissue blocks using IMP3. The clinicopathological data were
reviewed from patients’ pathological reports and were correlated with IMP3
expression.
Results
IMP3 positivity was seen in one of the seven (14.3%) cases of Hashimoto
thyroiditis, two of the 10 (20%) cases of hyperplastic nodule, four of the 15
(26.7%) cases of follicular thyroid adenoma, 12 of the 13 cases of papillary
thyroid carcinoma, and in all (100%) follicular variant of papillary thyroid
carcinoma and follicular thyroid carcinoma cases. IMP3 staining was
significantly increased from normal thyroid tissue to malignant tumors (P |
