Expression of polymorphic epithelial mucin 1 and epitbelial mucin15 and its significance in elderly patients with papillary thyroid carcinoma / 中华老年医学杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To investigate expression levels of epithelial mucin 1 (MUC1) and epitbelial mucin15(MUC15) in elderly patients with papillary thyroid carcinoma and assess the role of MUC1 and MUC15 in the pathogenesis of thyroid papillary carcinoma.Methods Protein expression of MUC1 and MUC15 was detected by immunohistochemistry in 10 samples from normal thyroid tissue adjacent to thyroid adenoma,57 samples from papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC),and 14 samples from PTC in neck lymph node metastasis.Results Expression rates of MUC1 in normal thyroid tissues,thyroid papillary carcinoma,and lymph node metastatic carcinoma were 40.0％,75.4％,64.3,respectively,and the rates for MUC15 were 0,73.7％,71.4％,respectively.The positive expression rate of MUC1 was higher in PTC tissues than in normal thyroid tissues (x2 =5.10,P=0.02) and,compared with normal thyroid tissues,the positive expression rate of MUC15 increased in PTC tissues and lymph node metastatic carcinoma (x2 =12.25 and 19.75,both P＜0.05)MUC15 protein expression was higher in micro-PTC (less than or equal to 1 cm in diameter) than in carcinoma larger than 1 cm in diameter (90.9％ vs.62.9,x2 =5.48,P=0.02).MUC15 expression was higher in PTC without lymph node metastasis than in PTC with lymph node metastasis (83.8％vs.55.0％,x2 =5.55,P=0.02).MUC1 expression was positively correlated with MUC15 expression in thyroid papillary carcinoma (r=0.35,P=0.01).Conclusions MUC1 and MUC15 may have synergistic effects in the initiation and progression of PTC.MUC15 may play a role in regulating tumorigenesis of thyroid papillary carcinoma in early stages and can potentially serve as a supplementary marker in the screening of micro-thyroid papillary carcinoma.