The Expression And Clinical Significance Of EGFR, EGF In Thyroid Neoplasm

Objective Detect the expression of Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor (EGFR) and Epidermal Growth Factor (EGF) in blood and tissue of the patients with thyroid neoplasm. Explore the correlation among EGFR, EGF expression and the size of the thyroid cancer, the metastases of lymph nodes, the pathologic staging. The association with the generation, development, prognosis of thyroid cancer may enable it become a new diagnostic predictor and therapeutic target.Methods ELISA method was used to detect the concentration of EGFR and EGF in the blood of patients with nodular goiter and differenciated thyroid carcinoma. Immunohistochemical technique (SP method) was used to detect the expression of EGFR and EGF in 91 cases of thyroid neoplasm, the relationship between the expression and the major clinical pathological parameters was also analyzed.Results 1. The concentration of EGFR in the blood of patients with nodular goiter and differenciated thyroid carcinoma are 53.91±13.43pg/ml and 80.36±20.43pg/ml individual (p<0.05), while the concentration of EGF are 116.85±27.66pg/ml and 172.03±59.36pg/ml(p<0.05) individual. 2. The positive rates of EGFR in nodular goiter, thyroid adenoma and differentiated thyroid cancer are 15 %, 25 %, 68.62 %. The positive rates of EGF in nodular goiter, thyroid adenoma and differentiated thyroid cancer are 10 %, 15 %, 68.62 %. These results show that the expression of EGFR, EGF in thyroid cancer is significantly higher than that in benign thyroid tumor(p<0.05). The expression of EGFR and EGF in papillary thyroid cancer is not correlated with the gender and the age of the patients, the diameter of the tumor, the presence of lymph nodes metastasis and the clinical stage. Conclusion The expression of EGFR and EGF are associated with the generation of thyroid cancer, which might be an early event in the development of thyroid cancer. The expression of EGFR and EGF may serve as a useful marker in identifying thyroid cancer and thyroid innocuousness node and may have the ability to be an effective point in the targeting therapy. But it seems not so useful in assessing clinical characteristics of papillary thyroid cancer.