Poorly Differentiated and Undifferentiated Thyroid Carcinomas

Catarina Eloy<sup>1; 2</sup>; Luciana Ferreira<sup>1; 2</sup>; Catarina Salgado<sup>1; 3</sup>; Paula Soares<sup>1; 2; 3</sup>; Manuel Sobrinho-Simões<sup>1; 2; 3; 4</sup>

doi:10.5146/tjpath.2015.01314

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2015, Volume 31, Number 0, Page(s) 048-059

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DOI: 10.5146/tjpath.2015.01314

Poorly Differentiated and Undifferentiated Thyroid Carcinomas

Catarina Eloy^1,2, Luciana Ferreira^1,2, Catarina Salgado^1,3, Paula Soares^1,2,3, Manuel Sobrinho-Simões^1,2,3,4

¹Institute of Molecular Pathology and Immunology of the University of Porto, Cancer Biology, Porto, Portugal
²Medical Faculty of Porto University, Pathology and Oncology, Porto, Portugal
³Instituto de Investigação e Inovação em Saúde, Universidade do Porto, Porto, Portugal
⁴Hospital Centre of S. João, Pathology, Porto, Portugal

Keywords: Anaplastic thyroid carcinoma, Non-medullary thyroid carcinoma, Molecular medicine, Small cell carcinomas, Poorly differentiated thyroid carcinoma

Thyroid cancer is the most common endocrine malignancy and its incidence goes on increasing worldwide. The majority of thyroid tumours comprise well-differentiated (papillary and follicular) thyroid carcinomas that usually carry an excellent prognosis, while a minority progress to poorly differentiated carcinoma (PDTC) and, ultimately, to the highly aggressive and lethal undifferentiated carcinoma (UTC). Recently, some major advances have been made on the histologic and imunohistochemical identification, as well as on the molecular characterization of PDTC and UTC. In this review we summarize the most recent immunohistochemical and molecular findings in PDTC and UTC, giving a particular emphasis to the diagnostic and prognostic meaning of the genetic alterations.

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