ETA2024 Poster Presentations Basic thyroid cancer research-1 (10 abstracts)
1University of Pisa, Department of Clinical and Experimental Medicine, Pisa, Italy; 2University of Pisa, Department of Surgical, Medical, Molecular Pathology and Critical Area, Pisa, Italy; 3Azienda Ospedaliero-Universitaria Pisana, Department of Emergency Medicine, Pisa, Italy; 4University of Pisa, Department of Translational Research and New Technologies in Medicine and Surgery, Pisa, Italy; 5Department of Pharmacy, University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy; 6University La Sapienza, Rome, "Sapienza" University of Rome, Department of Surgery, Roma, Italy; 7Sapienza, University of Rome, Department of Medico-Surgical Sciences and Biotechnologies, Medico-Surgical Sciences and Biotechnologies, Latina, Italy
Anaplastic thyroid cancer (ATC) is one of the aggressive and fatal human cancers, and accounts for <2% of thyroid carcinomas. Anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK) rearrangements are associated with tumor growth and considered a target for the treatment of ATC. Crizotinib is an oral small-molecule tyrosine kinase inhibitor of ALK, MET, and ROS1 kinases, approved in ALK-positive non-small cell lung cancer. The effect of crizotinib in primary human ATC (pATC) cells in transforming striatin (STRN)-ALK fusion has not yet been demonstrated in the literature. The aim of this study is to obtain pATC with STRN-ALK in vitro and investigate the antineoplastic effect of crizotinib. We obtained thyroid surgical samples from 12 ATC patients and 6 controls who were undergone to parathyroidectomy: 10/12 with pATC, 2 with transforming STRN-ALK fusion (17%). In 3/10 pATC (2 with/one without STRN-ALK), overall in those with STRN-ALK, crizotinib was able to inhibit proliferation, migration, invasion, while increased apoptosis. In addition, crizotinib was also significantly able to inhibit the proliferation of AF cells, a continuous cell line obtained by primary ATC cells. Finally, results obtained from these preclinical studies in human pATC (with STRN-ALK) in vitro will help to better understand the anticancer activity in ATC and pave the way to future clinical evaluations in these patients.