Study of cytokeratin 7 expression in papillary thyroid carcinoma and its correlation with some prognostic factors

Prognosis of papillary thyroid carcinoma is associated with age, sex, tumor size, lymph node metastasis, capsule invasion, multifocality, and history of radiation. Today, for prognostic evaluation of different tumors, various markers such as cytokeratin 7 are used. So, in this study our aim was evaluation of cytokeratin 7 expressions in papillary thyroid carcinoma and its correlation with prognostic factors.

In this cross-sectional study, 87 paraffin blocks from patients with papillary thyroid carcinoma referred to Mostafa Khomeini hospital were evaluated for Cytokeratin7 expression by immunohistochemistry method. Expression of this marker was determined as poor (+), moderate (++), strong (+++) and severe (++++). Then the association of cytokeratin 7 with some prognostic factors was evaluated

The patient's mean age was 40.13± 16.97 and 87.4% of patients were female. Cytokeratin 7 expression was seen in all samples. 86.2% of samples showed poor and moderate expression and 13.8% of them showed strong and severe expression. Reduced expression of cytokeratin 7 was significantly associated with an increase in age and lymph node involvement but was not associated with sex, tumor size, and capsule invasion.

Cytokeratin 7 expression is prevalent in papillary thyroid carcinoma samples and it is associated with lymph node involvement but it is not associated with tumor size and capsule invasion as important prognostic factors in papillary thyroid carcinoma. So, definite conclusion in this regard needs long-term studies.