title: Clinical characteristics and molecular pathology of skull ectopic thyroid cancer.
abstract: Thyroid cancer is very common, but skull ectopic thyroid cancer has not been reported in 50 years of literatures in foreign countries. There are only four cases of the skull ectopic thyroid cancer reported in more than 30 years of domestic literature including the cases in this report. This paper aims to investigate the clinical characteristics and possible molecular mechanisms of this rare disease. Five keywords of "thyroid gland", "ectopic thyroid", "thyroid cancer", "ectopic thyroid cancer" and "metastatic thyroid cancer" were included and 50 years of literatures in the PubMed-MEDLINE and Wanfang database were reviewed. By combining the test data of 2 cases of surgical patient tissue microarray specimens-molecular immunology pathology, the possible molecular mechanisms were analyzed and molecular regulation network diagram was drawn. The skull ectopic thyroid cancer has not been reported in 50 years of literatures in foreign countries and there are only four cases of the skull ectopic thyroid cancer reported in more than 30 years of domestic literature including the cases in this report. The molecular expressions of skull ectopic thyroid cancer, orthotopic thyroid cancer, and metastatic thyroid cancer were not the same: (I) AKT (P=0.012, 0.002) and mTOR (P=0.002, 0.004) were highly expressed in the skull ectopic thyroid cancer; (II) BRAF (P=0.029, 0.014) and ERK (P=0.002, 0.001) were highly expressed in orthotopic thyroid cancer; (III) MMP-9 (P=0.023, 0.016) was highly expressed in metastatic thyroid cancer. According to the molecular information base, thePI3Kis predicted to be a key crossing gene of the above three signaling pathways, which showed no significant differences in these three thyroid cancers (P=0.692, 0.388, 0.227), butPI3Khas regulation roles in the three signaling pathways of Akt/mTOR, MAPK, and NF-κB.PI3Kgene is an important starting gene of thyroid cancers. After the canceration starts, due to the fact that the local microenvironments of thyroid cancers in different parts are different, the thyroid cancers are regulated by different signaling pathways. The ectopic thyroid cancer was correlated with Akt/mTOR pathway high expression; orthotopic thyroid was related with MAPK/BRAF/ERK signaling pathway high expression; and the metastatic thyroid cancer was related with NFkB/MMP9 high expression.
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurosurgery, The Third People's Hospital of Zhangjiagang, Zhangjiagang 215611, China.
authors.forename: Longxing
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Cao
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurosurgery, The 2nd Affiliated Hospital of Soochow University, Suzhou 215004, China.
authors.forename: Zhongyong
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurosurgery, The 2nd Affiliated Hospital of Soochow University, Suzhou 215004, China.
authors.forename: Jiawei
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Ma
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurosurgery, The 2nd Affiliated Hospital of Soochow University, Suzhou 215004, China.
authors.forename: Jinsheng
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurosurgery, Guanghe Chinese & Western Medicine Hospital, Zhangjiagang 215633, China.
authors.forename: Haojiang
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Zhu
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurosurgery, Guanghe Chinese & Western Medicine Hospital, Zhangjiagang 215633, China.
authors.forename: Xiaohua
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Zhou
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurosurgery, The 2nd Affiliated Hospital of Soochow University, Suzhou 215004, China.
authors.forename: Qing
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Zhu
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurosurgery, The 2nd Affiliated Hospital of Soochow University, Suzhou 215004, China.
authors.forename: Jun
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Dong
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurosurgery, The 2nd Affiliated Hospital of Soochow University, Suzhou 215004, China.
authors.forename: Qing
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Lan
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurosurgery, The 2nd Affiliated Hospital of Soochow University, Suzhou 215004, China.
authors.forename: Qiang
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Huang
keywords: Ectopic thyroid; ectopic thyroid carcinoma; metastatic thyroid carcinoma; molecular pathway; thyroid carcinoma