Microenvironment on immune papillary thyroid carcinoma and its relationship with clinical pathological prognostic factors and survival

• Grant number: 13/22094-7
• Support Opportunities: Regular Research Grants
• Start date: February 01, 2014
• End date: January 31, 2016
• Field of knowledge: Health Sciences - Medicine - Pathological Anatomy and Clinical Pathology
• Principal Investigator: José Guilherme Vartanian
• Grantee: José Guilherme Vartanian
• Host Institution: A C Camargo Cancer Center. Fundação Antonio Prudente (FAP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Associated researchers: Renan Bezerra Lira

Abstract

The well-differentiated thyroid carcinoma is one of the fastest growing cancers in incidence in recent years, keeping, however, their mortality stable over this period. The main clinical and pathological prognostic factors well established for this type of cancer are age, tumor size, presence of extrathyroidal extension and metastasis. The relationship between the immune response of the individual and the process of development and progression of neoplasms has been extensively studied, however, in thyroid carcinomas this is still controversial and poorly understood. Several studies have demonstrated the importance of the immune microenvironment surrounding the tumor cells and the importance of macrophages in regulating this. The presence and density of tumor-associated macrophages is associated with metastasis, local invasion and worse prognosis in breast carcinomas, strengthening the hypothesis that these cells help the tumor progression. Thus, the tumor immune microenvironment appears as a significant prognostic marker and as a potential therapeutic target to change tumor behavior. The role of tumor-associated macrophages in well-differentiated thyroid carcinoma remains uncertain. Objective: To analyze the immune microenvironment of thyroid papillary carcinomas by immunohistochemical profile of inflammatory cells infiltrate in these tumors, trying to relate it with histological markers (immunohistochemistry) of tumor behavior, clinicopathological prognostic factors and disease-free survival. Methods: Will be selected for the study, cases of papillary thyroid carcinoma treated at AC Camargo Hospital from January 1990 to December 2010, with an estimated series of 1000 patients. The selected cases will have their records reviewed and fragments of tumor tissue harvested for construction of microarrays, in which will be made immunohistochemical analysis of 11 markers. Statistical analysis will be done using the program SPSS Statistics 20.0. (AU)