Journal of Pathology and Translational Medicine

Original Article

Difference of the Nuclear Green Light Intensity between Papillary Carcinoma Cells Showing Clear Nuclei and Non-neoplastic Follicular Epithelia in Papillary Thyroid Carcinoma: Hyekyung Lee, Tae Hwa Baek, Meeja Park, Seung Yun Lee, Hyun Jin Son, Dong Wook Kang, Joo Heon Kim, Soo Young Kim; J Pathol Transl Med. 2016;50(5):355-360. Published online August 22, 2016; DOI: https://doi.org/10.4132/jptm.2016.05.19

Abstract PDF: Background
There is subjective disagreement regarding nuclear clearing in papillary thyroid carcinoma. In this study, using digital instruments, we were able to quantify many ambiguous pathologic features and use numeric data to express our findings.
Methods
We examined 30 papillary thyroid carcinomas. For each case, we selected representative cancer cells showing clear nuclei and surrounding non-neoplastic follicular epithelial cells and evaluated objective values of green light intensity (GLI) for quantitative analysis of nuclear clearing in papillary thyroid carcinoma.
Results
From 16,274 GLI values from 600 cancer cell nuclei and 13,752 GLI values from 596 non-neoplastic follicular epithelial nuclei, we found a high correlation of 94.9% between GLI and clear nuclei. GLI between the cancer group showing clear nuclei and non-neoplastic follicular epithelia was statistically significant. The overall average level of GLI in the cancer group was over two times higher than the non-neoplastic group despite a wide range of GLI. On a polygonal line graph, there was a fluctuating unique difference between both the cancer and non-neoplastic groups in each patient, which was comparable to the microscopic findings.
Conclusions
Nuclear GLI could be a useful factor for discriminating between carcinoma cells showing clear nuclei and non-neoplastic follicular epithelia in papillary thyroid carcinoma.

Search