Endocrine Abstracts

Introduction: Thyroid cancer incidence has increased significantly during the past decades and is the most common type of endocrine malignancy. Suitable criteria for detecting malignant thyroid tumors are still missing. Therefore, the discovery of molecular markers linked to thyroid carcinogenesis will be helpful in the diagnosis of malignant tumors and managing their appropriate treatment.

Aim: The objective of the study was to evaluate survivin expression and its splice variants: survivin delta Ex3 and survivin 2B in benign and malignant thyroid nodules.

Methods: Thyroid tissues samples were collected from 50 patients: 29 patients with thyroid cancers including medullary, papillary, follicular and undifferentiated ones, as well as form 21 patients with benign thyroid lesions.The analysis of the survivin gene expression profile and the level of the splice variants of the gene was performed using quantitative RT-PCR.

Results: A significantly higher expression of survivin gene (P=0.0232) was detected in thyroid malignant nodules, as compared with benign lesions. The highest expression rate was noted for the survivin delta Ex3 splice variant in different types of thyroid carcinomas (P=0.0009). Moreover, the comparison of relative survivin expression in tumors staged pT1 and pT3 or pT4 revealed a much higher expression in tumor tissues of pT3/pT4 (P=0.0052). Additionally the expression of survivin in undifferentiated thyroid carcinomas was higher than in differentiated ones (P=0.0095).

Conclusion: The results suggest that survivin expression may be an indicator of the thyroid malignancy.