AVALIAÇÃO DO HLA-G SOLÚVEL E CITOCINAS PRÓ-INFLAMATÓRIAS E ANTI-INFLAMATÓRIAS COMO POTENCIAIS BIOMARCADORES PLASMÁTICOS EM PACIENTES COM CARCINOMA PAPILÍFERO DA TIREOIDE
Papillary thyroid carcinoma; biomarkers; soluble HLA-G; cytokines;
Papillary thyroid carcinoma accounts for 80% of all thyroid cancers, and usually shows a good prognosis, however, it has an aggressive behavior in about 15% of cases, increasing the chance of disease recurrence and risk of death. The identification of new non-invasive and efficient biomarkers for papillary thyroid carcinoma is crucial to help identifying high risk cases and unfavorable prognosis. Considering the role of chronic inflammation in tumorigenesis and the immunomodulatory role of HLA-G, this study aims to evaluate plasma levels of soluble HLA-G and pro-inflammatory and anti-inflammatory cytokines as potential biomarkers of papillary thyroid carcinoma. To date, the first stage of this study was completed, which consisted of measurement of soluble HLA-G in plasma from 81 patients with papillary thyroid carcinoma before and after thyroidectomy and 81 healthy individuals as controls, using an ELISA in-house method. The second stage consists of cytokines concentration determination in plasma from the same study population by flow cytometry, using the Cytometric Bead Array BD Cytometric Bead Array (CBA) Kit, Soluble Protein Flex Set System. Soluble HLA-G levels decreased significantly after thyroidectomy in patients in the early stages of papillary thyroid carcinoma (p = 0.011). On the other hand, patients in the advanced stages of had significantly higher soluble HLA-G levels than patients in the early stages after thyroidectomy (p = 0.019). The results obtained in the first stage of this study suggest that soluble HLA-G levels may be related to prognosis of patients, but a long-term follow-up of patients is still necessary to confirm this hypothesis.