Open AccessCirculating Tumour Cells and MicroRNA in Thyroid Cancer - a Systematic Review
Author(s) -
Shaneel Bappayya,
Hamish Clydesdale,
Simon ChangHao Tsao
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
journal of the endocrine society
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.046
H-Index - 20
ISSN - 2472-1972
DOI - 10.1210/jendso/bvab048.1752
Subject(s) - medicine , oncology , thyroid cancer , malignancy , circulating tumor cell , disease , thyroid nodules , colorectal cancer , microrna , cancer , systematic review , calcitonin , pathology , medline , metastasis , biochemistry , chemistry , political science , law , gene
Background: Thyroid cancer (TC) is the most common endocrine malignancy worldwide. Currently available circulating biomarkers such as thyroglobulin and calcitonin present severe limitations to the diagnosis and management of often difficult-to-diagnose lesions. There is increasing interest in the utility of circulating tumour cells (CTCs) and microRNAs to diagnose and optimise the management of patients with TC. Methods: In this study, we undertake a systematic review to gain a better understanding of the utility of CTCs and microRNAs in the diagnosis and management of patients with TC. A systematic review of the literature was performed by searching electronic bibliographic databases MEDLINE, EMBASE, SCOPUS and Web of Science. Studies which measured CTCs or microRNA levels in peripheral blood from TC patients were included. Review articles, conference abstracts, and foreign language papers were excluded. Results: There were 238 records screened for inclusion. Full texts of 47 articles were reviewed and included for qualitative analysis. CTCs demonstrated value in disease monitoring by distinguishing between disease recurrence and remission in patients with papillary thyroid cancer (PTC) and differentiated thyroid cancer (DTC). Higher CTC counts were associated with poorer progression free survival. This is consistent with CTC studies in other cancers such as breast and colorectal. A total of 31 microRNA biomarker candidates were investigated in studies reviewed. Circulating miR-222, miR-221 and miR-146b were most commonly increased in patients with PTC compared to benign nodules and healthy controls, and were associated with poorer prognostic factors including extrathyroidal invasion and metastatic lymph nodes. Circulating miR-222-3p and miR-17-5p demonstrated discriminatory power between medullary thyroid cancer (MTC) and benign nodules and healthy controls. Conclusion: CTCs demonstrate a promising avenue for disease monitoring and detection of local and distant recurrence in patients with DTC. Several microRNA candidates demonstrate value in diagnosis of PTC and MTC. There is a large degree of heterogeneity in studies assessing the utility of microRNA biomarker candidates. Further studies are warranted to ascertain the value of circulating microRNA in disease monitoring and prognosis.