Follicular lesions with papillary nuclear characteristics: Differences in chromatin detected by computerized image analysis

Made available in DSpace on 2021-06-25T10:36:13Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2020-09-01 Objective: Follicular lesions of the thyroid with papillary carcinoma nuclear characteristics are classified as infiltrative follicular variant of papillary thyroid carcinoma-FVPTC (IFVPTC), encapsulated/ well demarcated FVPTC with tumour capsular invasion (IEFVPTC), and the newly described category “non-invasive follicular thyroid neoplasm with papillary-like nuclear features” (NIFTP) formerly known as non-invasive encapsulated FVPTC.This study evaluated whether computerized image analysis can detect nuclear differences between these three tumour subtypes. Materials and methods: Slides with histological material from 15 cases of NIFTP and 33 cases of FVPTC subtypes (22 IEFVPTC, and 11 IFVPTC) were analyzed using the Image J image processing program.Tumour cells were compared for both nuclear morphometry and chromatin textural characteristics. Results: Nuclei from NIFTP and IFVPTC tumours differed in terms of chromatin textural features (grey intensity): mean (92.37 ± 21.01 vs 72.99 ± 14.73, p = 0.02), median (84.93 ± 21.17 vs 65.18 ± 17.08, p = 0.02), standard deviation (47.77 ± 9.55 vs 39.39 ± 7.18; p = 0.02), and coefficient of variation of standard deviation (19.96 ± 4.01 vs 24.75 ± 3.31; p = 0.003). No differences were found in relation to IEFVPTC. Conclusion: Computerized image analysis revealed differences in nuclear texture between NIFTP and IFVPTC, but not for IEFVPTC. Departamento de Cirurgia e Ortopedia Faculdade de Medicina de Botucatu Universidade Estadual de São Paulo (Unesp) Departamento de Dermatologia Faculdade de Medicina de Botucatu Universidade Estadual de São Paulo (Unesp) Departamento de Medicina Interna Faculdade de Medicina de Botucatu Universidade Estadual de São Paulo (Unesp) Departamento de Patologia Faculdade de Medicina de Botucatu Universidade Estadual de São Paulo (Unesp) Departamento de Otorrinolaringologia e Cirurgia de Cabeça e Pescoço Faculdade de Medicina de Botucatu Universidade Estadual de São Paulo (Unesp) Instituto de Investigação e Inovação em Saúde (i3S) Universidade do Porto Grupo de Sinalização e Metabolismo do Câncer Instituto de Patologia Molecular e Imunologia da Universidade do Porto (IPATIMUP) Departamento de Patologia Faculdade de Medicina da Universidade do Porto Departamento de Cirurgia e Ortopedia Faculdade de Medicina de Botucatu Universidade Estadual de São Paulo (Unesp) Departamento de Dermatologia Faculdade de Medicina de Botucatu Universidade Estadual de São Paulo (Unesp) Departamento de Medicina Interna Faculdade de Medicina de Botucatu Universidade Estadual de São Paulo (Unesp) Departamento de Patologia Faculdade de Medicina de Botucatu Universidade Estadual de São Paulo (Unesp) Departamento de Otorrinolaringologia e Cirurgia de Cabeça e Pescoço Faculdade de Medicina de Botucatu Universidade Estadual de São Paulo (Unesp)