Guerra L N, Miler E A, Moiguer S, Karner M, Orlandi A M, Fideleff H, Burdman J A
Endocrinology Unit, Hospital Israelita EZRAH, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Clin Chim Acta. 2006 Aug;370(1-2):180-4. doi: 10.1016/j.cca.2006.02.009. Epub 2006 Mar 6.
The diagnosis of thyroid follicular carcinoma by fine needle aspiration biopsy is a well known problem in thyroid pathology.
We evaluated telomerase activity (TA) in 85 fine needle aspiration biopsy (FNAB) samples from patients with thyroid nodules. Surgery samples from patients with tumor or follicular adenomas were also analyzed.
Twenty of the FNAB samples corresponded to carcinomas and were positive to telomerase assay (TA >10 Units). Among them, 4 follicular carcinomas and 1 papillary carcinoma were labeled as indeterminate by FNAB cytological examination. Four percent false positive cases and no false negative cases for TA in FNABs were reported. FNAB samples from follicular adenomas were diagnosed as indeterminate by cytological examination, but they showed no detectable TA. Tumor tissues from patients with follicular or papillary thyroid carcinomas presented TA >10 Units, whereas follicular adenoma tissues (benign nodules) showed no TA.
Our results showed a good correlation between TA in FNAB samples and tumor/nodule thyroid tissue. This suggested that use of TA as a biological marker of malignancy might be a useful tool in the diagnosis of follicular thyroid carcinomas or follicular thyroid adenomas using FNAB samples.
通过细针穿刺活检诊断甲状腺滤泡癌是甲状腺病理学中一个众所周知的问题。
我们评估了85例甲状腺结节患者细针穿刺活检（FNAB）样本中的端粒酶活性（TA）。还分析了肿瘤患者或滤泡性腺瘤患者的手术样本。
20例FNAB样本对应于癌，端粒酶检测呈阳性（TA>10单位）。其中，4例滤泡癌和1例乳头状癌在FNAB细胞学检查中被标记为不确定。报告了FNAB中端粒酶检测4%的假阳性病例，无假阴性病例。滤泡性腺瘤的FNAB样本经细胞学检查诊断为不确定，但未检测到TA。滤泡性或乳头状甲状腺癌患者的肿瘤组织TA>10单位，而滤泡性腺瘤组织（良性结节）未显示TA。
我们的结果表明FNAB样本中的TA与甲状腺肿瘤/结节组织之间具有良好的相关性。这表明，将TA用作恶性肿瘤的生物标志物可能是使用FNAB样本诊断滤泡性甲状腺癌或滤泡性腺瘤的有用工具。
