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Is papillary thyroid microcarcinoma a biologically different disease? A propensity score‐matched analysis
Author(s) -
Hsu YiChiung,
Lee JieJen,
Chien MingNan,
Chen MingJen,
Leung ChingHsiang,
Cheng ShihPing
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
journal of surgical oncology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.201
H-Index - 111
eISSN - 1096-9098
pISSN - 0022-4790
DOI - 10.1002/jso.25670
Subject(s) - medicine , transcriptome , carcinoma , thyroid carcinoma , oncology , papillary thyroid cancer , thyroid , cancer , thyroid cancer , pathology , gene , gene expression , biology , genetics
Background Papillary thyroid microcarcinoma exhibits an indolent clinical course and could be a candidate for active surveillance in the appropriate setting. It remains unknown whether papillary microcarcinoma is biologically different from larger papillary carcinoma >1 cm. Methods We analyzed clinicopathological information and transcriptome data of papillary thyroid cancer samples from The Cancer Genome Atlas. Propensity‐score matching was used to construct a matched cohort consisting of 29 microcarcinomas and 58 carcinomas. Principal component analysis and unsupervised hierarchical cluster analysis were carried out to investigate the similarity of gene expression profiles. Results After adjustment for differences in baseline clinicopathological and genetic factors, transcriptome could be grouped mainly on the basis of tumor class (BRAF‐like vs RAS‐like) and tumor size (microcarcinoma vs carcinoma). The gene set enrichment analysis showed that extracellular matrix‐associated pathways were enriched in the MSigDB database. Conclusion Papillary thyroid microcarcinomas display a distinct gene expression pattern different from the corresponding carcinomas. We hypothesize that tumor microenvironment may play a role in the microcarcinoma/carcinoma phenotypic divergence.