Background
There were no previous studies that have tried to find the prediction of papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC) occurrence in Hashimoto’s thyroiditis (HT) that will advise early thyroidectomy in HT cases with high risk of progression to PTC.
Patients and methods
We included five groups of paraffin blocks that were retrieved from 70 patients. The first group included 20 cases of PTC, the second group included 20 samples from the same cases previously diagnosed as HT, the third group included 30 cases of HT, the fourth group included 30 samples from the same cases previously diagnosed as HT, and the fifth group had 20 cases of PTC without a history of HT. The sections were stained by CD56, HBME-1, and CK19 using immunohistochemistry.
Results
There is a significant difference between the second (HT that will be transformed to PTC) and the fourth (HT that will not be transformed to PTC) groups as regards CD56, HBME-1, and CK19 expression (=0.012).
Conclusion
A combination of negative CD56 expression and diffuse positive HBME-1 could be used with high sensitivity and specificity in predicting PTC occurrence in certain cases of HT and these patients will be advised to early total thyroidectomy to avoid PTC occurrence in the future.