Cyclin D1 expression as a prognostic parameter in papillary carcinoma of the thyroid

Papillary carcinoma of the thyroid is the most common thyroid cancer. At th e time of clinical presentation, most papillary carcinomas are still confin ed to the thyroid gland, and appropriate surgical treatment achieves a 95% 5-year survival rate, Certain carcinomas, however, behave in a much more ag gressive fashion. Because specific therapies do not exist, for those tumors that have escaped local control, patients with disseminated disease have l ittle or no chance of permanent cure or long-term survival, Cyclin D1, a pr otein that plays a critical role in the control of the cell cycle, has been shown to be overexpressed in a variety of human neoplasias and may serve a s a prognostic parameter of disease progression, To explore the role played by cyclin D1 in the pathogenesis of thyroid papillary carcinoma, we have q uantitated, by computerized image analysis, the immunohistochemical express ion of cyclin D1 in formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded tissue from 35 conven tional papillary carcinomas of the thyroid and correlated the results with established clinicopathologic parameters and available survival data.