Pregnancy and thyroid cancer

Differentiated thyroid cancer (DTC) although a relatively rare neoplasia, in the US, it is the second most frequently diagnosed tumour in pregnancy.  It has been postulated that the associated physiological changes in pregnancy could contribute to favourable conditions  for tumour growth and development. However, very little data is available about the outcome of DTC related to pregnancy.

Messuti et al therefore conducted a study to characterise at the clinical, phenotypical and molecular levels, DTC cases in pregnancy as compared with matched control groups.

The results of their study show that pregnancy could really exert a negative prognostic role in patients with DTC and further research is needed to clarify the underlying mechanisms.

Read full article at Messuti et al. (2014) European Journal of Endocrinology 170 659-666; DOI: 10.1530/EJE-13-0903