title: Interleukin 10 expression is related to aggressiveness and poor prognosis of patients with thyroid cancer.
abstract: Most patients with thyroid cancer will evolve very well with current therapies. However, 10-30% of these patients will present recurrent disease and some of them will eventually die. IL-10 is an anti-inflammatory and immunosuppressive cytokine that can contribute to the immune escape of neoplastic cells. We aimed to investigate IL-10 as a molecular marker to improve the clinical management of patients with thyroid cancer. We retrospectively studied 162 patients with follicular cell-derived thyroid cancer who attended to our institution, including 63 classic papillary thyroid carcinomas, 46 follicular variant of papillary thyroid carcinomas, 11 poorly differentiated thyroid carcinomas and 42 follicular thyroid carcinomas. Patients were treated according to current guidelines and followed-up for 1-150 months. Additionally, we studied 96 samples of non-malignant tissues. We investigated the expression of IL-10 in tumor cells by semiquantitative and quantitative methods. Malignant tissues presented higher positivity (0.773 ± 0.140) than non-malignant samples (0.623 ± 0.190; p < 0.001). Tumors with extrathyroidal invasion at diagnosis presented higher levels of positivity for IL-10 (0.802 ± 0.125) than tumors without extrathyroidal invasion (0.731 ± 0.147; p = 0.004). We observed a positive correlation between tumor size and IL-10 positivity (correlation coefficient = 0.407; p < 0.001). Patients with IL-10 positivity above the median presented lower relapse-free survival rate compared to those patients whose tumors presented IL-10 positivity below the median. We suggest that a simple IL-10 IHC analysis could help selecting patients who would benefit from a more intensive approach.
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Cancer Molecular Genetics, Faculty of Medical Sciences, University of Campinas (Unicamp), 126, Tessalia Veira de Camargo Street, Cidade Universitária, Campinas, São Paulo, 11083-894, Brazil.
authors.forename: Lucas Leite
authors.initials: LL
authors.lastname: Cunha
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Cancer Molecular Genetics, Faculty of Medical Sciences, University of Campinas (Unicamp), 126, Tessalia Veira de Camargo Street, Cidade Universitária, Campinas, São Paulo, 11083-894, Brazil.|Department of Biological and Health Sciences, State University of Roraima, Boa Vista, Brazil.
authors.forename: Elaine Cristina
authors.initials: EC
authors.lastname: Morari
authors.affiliation: Adolfo Lutz Institute, São Paulo, Brazil.
authors.forename: Sueli
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Nonogaki
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Cancer Molecular Genetics, Faculty of Medical Sciences, University of Campinas (Unicamp), 126, Tessalia Veira de Camargo Street, Cidade Universitária, Campinas, São Paulo, 11083-894, Brazil.
authors.forename: Marjory Alana
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Marcello
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathology, AC Camargo Cancer Center, São Paulo, Brazil.
authors.forename: Fernando Augusto
authors.initials: FA
authors.lastname: Soares
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathology, AC Camargo Cancer Center, São Paulo, Brazil.|Laboratory of Investigative and Molecular Pathology (Ciped), Faculty of Medical Sciences, University of Campinas (Unicamp), Campinas, Brazil.
authors.forename: José
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Vassallo
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Cancer Molecular Genetics, Faculty of Medical Sciences, University of Campinas (Unicamp), 126, Tessalia Veira de Camargo Street, Cidade Universitária, Campinas, São Paulo, 11083-894, Brazil. ward@fcm.unicamp.br.
authors.forename: Laura Sterian
authors.initials: LS
authors.lastname: Ward
mesh_terms: D018263:Adenocarcinoma, Follicular / Q000276:immunology / Q000378:metabolism* / Q000473:pathology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007150:Immunohistochemistry; D016753:Interleukin-10 / Q000096:biosynthesis* / Q000276:immunology; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011379:Prognosis; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D015996:Survival Rate; D013964:Thyroid Neoplasms / Q000276:immunology / Q000378:metabolism* / Q000473:pathology
chemical_list: D016753:Interleukin-10
keywords: Interleukin 10; Prognostic marker; Thyroid neoplasm; Tumor immunology