Does Galectin3 Immunohistochemical Marker Help in Diagnosing the Nature of Benign or Malignant Thyroid Tumor?

Introduction: Galectin-3 has been reported quite accurate to detect or exclude malignancy in nodules with prior indeterminate Fine Needle Aspiration Cytology and per operative findings. Keeping this fact in mind, Galectin-3 can have a pivotal role in separating benign from the malignant thyroid neoplasms.

We aim to determine the frequency and intensity of Galectin-3 immunohistochemical expression among benign and malignant thyroid neoplasms confirmed on histopathology.

Materials and Methods: We studied 78 thyroid specimens diagnosed with thyroid neoplasms on histopathology. Out of these 39 were benign cases (follicular adenoma and hurthle cell adenoma) and 39 were malignant cases (papillary thyroid carcinomas, follicular carcinoma, medullary carcinoma and poorly differentiated carcinoma). Each specimen was examined grossly and microscopically and checked for immunohistochemical staining pattern of Galectin-3 under the microscope.

Results: Age range in this study was from 15 to 65 years with mean age of 44.97 ± 10.78 years. Out of these 78 patients, 17 (21.79%) were male and 61 (78.21%) were female with male to female ratio of 1:3.6. Frequency of positive Galectin-3 immuno histochemical expression among thyroid neoplasms was found in 32 (41.03%) cases with Galectin-3 showing positive staining in 21 (53.85%) of all malignant and 11 (28.21%) of all benign cases .Among the malignant neoplasms, positivity was seen most frequently in papillary thyroid carcinomas as compared to the other malignancies.

Conclusion: This study concluded that positive Galectin-3 immunohistochemical expression is more in malignant thyroid neoplasms (53.85%) as compare to the benign lesions (28.21%). Therefore, we recommend that this marker cannot be used alone for the routine diagnosis of malignant lesions as it has shown less sensitivity and specificity. Moreover it also has shown no significant role in differentiating between the benign and the malignant thyroid neoplasms.