Background
Differentiation of benign from malignant-follicular thyroid lesions remains difficult 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 |
