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Interleukin 10 expression is related to aggressiveness and poor prognosis of patients with thyroid cancer

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Abstract

Most patients with thyroid cancer will evolve very well with current therapies. However, 10–30% of these patients will present recurrent disease and some of them will eventually die. IL-10 is an anti-inflammatory and immunosuppressive cytokine that can contribute to the immune escape of neoplastic cells. We aimed to investigate IL-10 as a molecular marker to improve the clinical management of patients with thyroid cancer. We retrospectively studied 162 patients with follicular cell-derived thyroid cancer who attended to our institution, including 63 classic papillary thyroid carcinomas, 46 follicular variant of papillary thyroid carcinomas, 11 poorly differentiated thyroid carcinomas and 42 follicular thyroid carcinomas. Patients were treated according to current guidelines and followed-up for 1–150 months. Additionally, we studied 96 samples of non-malignant tissues. We investigated the expression of IL-10 in tumor cells by semiquantitative and quantitative methods. Malignant tissues presented higher positivity (0.773 ± 0.140) than non-malignant samples (0.623 ± 0.190; p < 0.001). Tumors with extrathyroidal invasion at diagnosis presented higher levels of positivity for IL-10 (0.802 ± 0.125) than tumors without extrathyroidal invasion (0.731 ± 0.147; p = 0.004). We observed a positive correlation between tumor size and IL-10 positivity (correlation coefficient = 0.407; p < 0.001). Patients with IL-10 positivity above the median presented lower relapse-free survival rate compared to those patients whose tumors presented IL-10 positivity below the median. We suggest that a simple IL-10 IHC analysis could help selecting patients who would benefit from a more intensive approach.

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Abbreviations

APC:

Antigen-presenting cell(s)

CD:

Cluster of differentiation

COX:

Cyclooxygenase

CT:

Chronic lymphocytic thyroiditis

HR:

Hazard ratio

IHC:

Immunohistochemistry

IL:

Interleukin

LN:

Lymph node

MHC:

Major histocompatibility complex

NO:

Nitric oxide

TIL:

Tumor infiltrating lymphocyte(s)

pTNM:

Tumor lymph node metastasis stage

TSH:

Thyroid-stimulating hormone

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Funding

The authors’ research grant was supported by the São Paulo State Research Foundation/FAPESP. First author was supported by a fellowship grant from FAPESP.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratory of Cancer Molecular Genetics, Faculty of Medical Sciences, University of Campinas (Unicamp), 126, Tessalia Veira de Camargo Street, Cidade Universitária, Campinas, São Paulo, 11083-894, Brazil

    Lucas Leite Cunha, Elaine Cristina Morari, Marjory Alana Marcello & Laura Sterian Ward

  2. Department of Biological and Health Sciences, State University of Roraima, Boa Vista, Brazil

    Elaine Cristina Morari

  3. Adolfo Lutz Institute, São Paulo, Brazil

    Sueli Nonogaki

  4. Department of Pathology, AC Camargo Cancer Center, São Paulo, Brazil

    Fernando Augusto Soares & José Vassallo

  5. Laboratory of Investigative and Molecular Pathology (Ciped), Faculty of Medical Sciences, University of Campinas (Unicamp), Campinas, Brazil

    José Vassallo

Authors
  1. Lucas Leite Cunha
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  2. Elaine Cristina Morari
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  3. Sueli Nonogaki
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  4. Marjory Alana Marcello
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  5. Fernando Augusto Soares
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  6. José Vassallo
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  7. Laura Sterian Ward
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Correspondence to Laura Sterian Ward.

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Cunha, L.L., Morari, E.C., Nonogaki, S. et al. Interleukin 10 expression is related to aggressiveness and poor prognosis of patients with thyroid cancer. Cancer Immunol Immunother 66, 141–148 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00262-016-1924-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00262-016-1924-4

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