Tumor proliferation-related markers in papillary thyroid carcinomas: correlation with histologic subtypes

Four sorts of tumor proliferation-related markers were studied in 50 papillary carcinomas of the thyroid, and the results were correlated with the histologic subtypes of papillary thyroid carcinoma, which have been shown to be associated with the prognosis of the disease. The mitotic count analyzed by light microscopy, the proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA) and the epidermal growth factor (EGF) expressions by immunohistochemical analysis, and the ploidy status analyzed by DNA flow cytometry were used as the proliferation-related markers in this study. The presence of mitoses, high PCNA score and DNA aneuploidy did not correlate with the histologic subtypes, patient age, sex or the tumor extent. Only EGF expression was significantly correlated with the histologic subtypes. This finding suggests that EGF expression may be the most reliable marker to predict the prognosis of papillary carcinoma of the thyroid.