Primary Evaluation of Appling HMGA2 in the Diagnosis of Thyroid Carcinoma

Abstract Background Molecular marker is on the hot spot for thyroid tumor research in the recent years. The purpose of this study is try to clarify the value of HMGA2 for differential diagnosis between benign and malignant thyroid nodules in order to further assessing the risk of simultaneous cervical lymph nodes metastasis. Methods With a total of 125 thyroid samples, including 85 papillary thyroid carcinomas, 20 follicular thyroid adenomas and 20 normal thyroid tissue were retrospectively analyzed, and we compare expression level of HMGA2 protein among these three groups in this study. PTC group was then subdivided according to the number of metastasis lymph nodes in order to explore the possibility of using HMGA2 protein to predict invasion of lymph nodes in PTC. We also compare the efficiency of BRAFV600E mutation and HMGA2 expression level in the prediagnosis of cervical lymph node metastasis during the experiment. Results Expression rate of HMGA2 protein in PTC was measured at 100%, which has significant statistical differences with HMGA2 in FTA and NT (P < 0.05). Moreover, there was no significant correlation between expression level of HMGA2 and the size of PTC; whether it accompanied by Hashimoto's thyroiditis; high expression level of HMGA2 could be more sensitive in the prediagnosis of cervical lymph node metastasis than BRAFV600E mutation. Conclusion ①HMGA2 protein can be used as a molecular marker for differential diagnosis of benign and malignant thyroid nodules. ②The expression level of HMGA2 protein is correlated with cervical lymph node metastasis in papillary thyroid carcinoma, performing an auxiliary value for clinical decision.