| Thyroid carcinoma is one of the most common malignant carcinomas in the endocrine system, the death rate caused by thyroid carcinoma is about 1% in all tumors. Histopathological types of thyroid carcinomas can be divided into 4 types: papillary thyroid carcinoma, follicular thyroid carcinoma, medullary thyroid carcinoma and undifferentiated thyroid carcinoma. Papillary thyroid carcinoma is about 60%-80% in thyroid carcinomas, because it rises in secret and its biological characters are various, that makes the current diagnosis of cytology, imageology and pathology exist the certain misdiagnosis rate. Therefore, it is necessary to find a specific marker of papillary thyroid carcinoma in order to improve the level of clinical and pathological diagnosis.Galectin-3 is a beta-galactoside-binding protein, also a number of beta- galactoside-binding lectin family. Galectin-3 relative molecular mass is 31-KDa, and it consists of an amino-terminal domain, the repetition of proline and glycine-rich sequence, and a COOH-terminal carbohydrate recognition domain. Galectin-3 has a high affinity for beta-galactosides, and it has been shown to play an important role in cell-cell and cell-matrix interactions and in mRNA splicing process. Moreover, it is a protein with a variety of biological functions, including the control of cell growth, cell adhesion, cell apoptosis, inflammatory reaction, immunological regulation, neoplastic transformation and metastasis. Galectin-3 expresses more in the activated macrophage, basophils, epithelial cells and sensory neurons than in other places. It mainly exists in the cytoplasm, also can exist in the cell nucleus, the cell surface or cell outside. In many recent studies, it has been proved that over-expression of galectin-3 had something to do with the progress of various malignant tumors, which was from the stomach, bowel, the central nervous system and thyroid. Among them, the relation between the positive expression of galectin-3 and the progress of papillary thyroid carcinoma has become a study hot.The main purpose of this experiment is to detect the degree of galectin-3 expression in papillary thyroid carcinoma by immunohistochemical staining method (EnVisionTM). Thus we can explore the important significance of galectin-3 expression in the diagnosis of papillary thyroid carcinoma. 50 collected specimens of papillary thyroid carcinomas can be divided into different groups by the different degree of invasion, the different degree of differentiation, the different histopathological types, the different metastasis of lymph node, the different benign lesions around papillary thyroid carcinoma, the different age and sex of the patients. Through the immunohistochemical method, we can obtain the data about expression of galectin-3 in papillary thyroid carcinoma, and analyze the relation between the expression of galectin-3 and the biological behaviors such as the growth of tumor, the invasion of tumor, and the metastasis of tumor, etc.The results of the experiments are as follows: galectin-3 expression was high in 50 papillary thyroid carcinoma specimens, the positive expression rate was 94.0%, the sensitivity was 94.0%, the specificity was 100%, and the diagnostic accuracy rate was 96.6%. The positive expression of galectin-3 was localized in the cytoplasm and cell membrane, some localized in the nuclei. There were 47 samples which the expression of galectin-3 were positive in 50 PTC specimens, the positive rate was up to 94.0%, but the expression of galectin-3 in the benign lesions around the carcinomas was all negative. From above, the conclusion could be drown that there had been obvious difference about the expression of galctin-3 between in PTC and in benign lesions around PTC(P<0.01), in other words, it was that the positive expression of galecti-3 in PTC was much higher than that in benign lesions; the positive expression rate of galectin-3 in extensive invasion PTC was 93.1%, but the positive expression rate of galectin-3 in partial invasion PTC was 95.2%(P>0.05), it provided us that the positive expression of galectin-3 in PTC had nothing to do with the invasion degree of PTC; the positive expression rate of galectin-3 in good differentiation PTC was 93.8%, the positive expression rate of galectin-3 in medium differentiation PTC was 95.5%, the positive expression rate of galectin-3 in bad differentiation PTC was 91.7%(P > 0.05), it indicated that the positive expression of galectin-3 in PTC had nothing to do with the differentiated degree of PTC; the positive expression rate of galectin-3 in CPC was 91.4%, the positive expression rate of galectin-3 in FVPC was 100.0%, the positive expression rate of galectin-3 in PM was 100.0%(P>0.05), it illustrated that the positive expression of galectin-3 in PTC had nothing to do with the histopathological types of PTC; it could be done a statistical analysis about the relation between the positive expression of galectin-3 in PTC and the sex and age of patients, then we could draw a conclusion that the positive expression of galectin-3 in PTC was free from the influence of sufferer's sex and age; the positive expression rate of galectin-3 in PTC with lymph node metastasis was 100.0%, but the positive expression rate of galectin-3 in PTC without lymph node metastasis was 90.9%(P > 0.05), it demonstrated that the positive expression of galectin-3 in PTC would not be influenced whether PTC had lymph metastasis or not.To sum up, as the positive expression of galectin-3 in PTC was in high situation, in addition, the sensitivity and the specificity of galectin-3 in PTC was also high, galectin-3 could be as a specific molecular marker to detect PTC. Moreover, the immunohistochemical staining method is convenient and accurate, so galectin-3 can be widely applied in the pathological diagnosis of PTC, it also can provide the true and reliable bases for the clinical and pathological diagnosis. |
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