Immunohistochemistry related to the diagnosis and metastasis of papillary thyroid carcinoma

OBJECTIVE: To estimate the clinical value of CK19, p53, and p63 on distinguishing benign and malignant thyroid diseases and get further knowledge about the relationship between p53, p63, cerbB-2, nm23 and papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC) metastasis. METHODS: By the immunohistochemical method called Elivision, CK19, p53, p63, cerbB-2 and nm23 were examined respectively in 57 PTC and 57 thyroid benign disease patients. RESULTS: CK19 expression rates in PTC and benign disease of thyroid were 91.2% and 1.76%, respectively; p53 expressions in PTC and benign disease were 89.5% and 17.5%, respectively. The p63 positive rates were 22.8% and 12.3% in PTC and benign disease, respectively. There were no statistical differences in the expressions of p53, p63, cerbB-2 and nm23 between the metastasis group and non-metastasis group(P0.05). The positive rates of cerbB-2 and nm23 in PTC were 84.2% and 91.2%, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: CK19 and p53 are valuable assistant diagnostic points for PTC pathological diagnosis. p63 has no explicit value for distinguishing diagnosis of benign or malignant diseases in thyoid. p53, p63, cerbB-2 and nm23 have no relationship with metastasis of PTC. cerbB-2 expression degrees are positively related to nm23.