Long-Term Effect of TIMP3 Gene Expression on Thyroid Cancer: A Cure Model Analysis

Thyroid cancer is the most common endocrine malignancy. TIMP3, a metalloproteinase inhibitor, can inhibit angiogenesis, invasion, and metastasis in thyroid cancer. In this study, we investigated the long-term effect of TIMP3 gene expression and other associated factors on the survival rate and cure probability of thyroid cancer patients.

In this historical cohort study, clinical information was collected from 507 thyroid cancer patients and 59 control samples based on the TCGA database. The Kaplan-Meier curve and log-rank test were employed for group comparisons. Weibull mixture and non-mixture cure models were utilized to explore the association between TIMP3 gene expression and survival time, as well as cure status. All statistical analyses were conducted using the R language.

There were 507 thyroid cancer patients and 59 normal tissue participants in the study with an average age of 47.93±15.96 and 47.06 ± 17.74 years respectively. A total of 26.8 percent of patients were male, 69.6 percent had high expression, and 3.16 percent died during the study. Compared with normal tissue participants, tumor-positive patients had significantly lower TIMP3 expression (p<0.001). After 2,000 days of follow-up, 78 percent of patients were cured based on Kaplan-Meier curves. The results show that the Weibull mixture cure model is superior to the non-mixture cure model. Moreover, after controlling for other factors, higher TIMP3 expression was associated with an increased chance of long-term recovery in patients. Specifically, the odds of cure in patients with higher TIMP3 expression were approximately 2.3 times greater than others.

TIMP3 expression has a protective effect on cure probability in thyroid cancer patients, even though it does not appear to affect short-term survival. This study suggests that targeting TIMP3 may offer promise for thyroid cancer and may be a potential biomarker for thyroid cancer prognosis.