ArticleThyroid : official journal of the American Thyroid Association2013
Measurement of calcitonin and calcitonin gene-related peptide mRNA refines the management of patients with medullary thyroid cancer and may replace calcitonin-stimulation tests.
Article in Thyroid : official journal of the American Thyroid Association, 2013. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 12 papers.
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Who cites it
12 citing papers in PubMed, 24 citations in OpenAlex.
- Circulating Biomarkers of Thyroid Cancer: An Appraisal.Journal of clinical medicine · 2025Review
- Deciphering pathological behavior of pediatric medullary thyroid cancer from single-cell perspective.PeerJ · 2023Article
- Calcitonin: current concepts and differential diagnosis.Therapeutic advances in endocrinology and metabolism · 2022Review
- Preoperative Serum Calcitonin Level and Ultrasonographic Characteristics Predict the Risk of Metastatic Medullary Thyroid Carcinoma: Functional Analysis of Calcitonin-Related Genes.Disease markers · 2022Article
- Transcriptomic Analysis Reveals an Altered Hcy Metabolism in the Stria Vascularis of the Pendred Syndrome Mouse Model.Neural plasticity · 2021Article
- Updates in the advances of sporadic medullary thyroid carcinoma: from the molecules to the clinic.Gland surgery · 2020Review
- Circulating RNA Transcriptome of Pregnant Women with TSH Just Above the Trimester-Specific Reference and its Correlation with the Hypertensive Phenotype.Scientific reports · 2020Observational
- A Concise Atlas of Thyroid Cancer Next-Generation Sequencing Panel ThyroSeq v.2.Molecular imaging and radionuclide therapy · 2017Article
- TheBioMed research international · 2017Article
- Correlation between indoleamine 2,3 dioxygenase mRNA and CDKN2A/p16 mRNA: a combined strategy to cervical cancer diagnosis.Medical oncology (Northwood, London, England) · 2016Article
- A Genomic Alternative to Identify Medullary Thyroid Cancer Preoperatively in Thyroid Nodules with Indeterminate Cytology.Thyroid : official journal of the American Thyroid Association · 2016Article
- Assessment of the Effect of Two Distinct Restricted Iodine Diet Durations on Urinary Iodine Levels (Collected over 24 h or as a Single-Spot Urinary Sample) and Na(+)/I(-) Symporter Expression.European thyroid journal · 2015Article
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Authors and funding
12 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
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No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundSerum calcitonin (sCT) is the main tumor marker for medullary thyroid cancer (MTC), but it has certain limitations. Various sCT assays may have important intra-assay or interassay variation and may yield different and sometimes conflicting results. A pentagastrin- or calcium-stimulation calcitonin (CT) test may be desirable in some situations. Alternatively, or in the absence of the stimulation test, mRNA detection offers the advantages of being more comfortable and less invasive; it only requires blood collection and has no side effects. The objective of this study was to investigate the applicability of measuring calcitonin-related polypeptide alpha (CALCA) gene transcripts (CT-CALCA and calcitonin gene-related peptide [CGRP]-CALCA) in patients with MTC and in relatives diagnosed with a RET mutation and to test mRNA as an alternative diagnostic tool for the calcitonin-stimulation test.
methodsTwenty-three healthy controls and 26 individuals evaluated for MTC were selected, including patients with sporadic or hereditary MTC and RET mutation-carrying relatives. For molecular analysis, RNA was extracted from peripheral blood, followed by cDNA synthesis using 3.5 μg of total RNA. Quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) was performed with SYBR Green and 200 nM of each primer for the two specific mRNA targets (CT-CALCA or CGRP-CALCA) and normalized with the ribosomal protein S8 as the reference gene.
resultsWe detected CALCA transcripts in the blood samples and observed a positive correlation between them (r=0.946, p<0.0001). Both mRNAs also correlated with sCT (CT-CALCA, r=0.713, p<0.0001; CGRP-CALCA, r=0.714, p<0.0001). The relative expression of CT-CALCA and CGRP-CALCA presented higher clinical sensitivity (86.67 and 100, respectively), specificity (97.06 and 97.06), positive predictive value (92.86 and 93.75), and negative predictive value (94.29 and 100), than did sCT (73.33, 82.35, 64.71, and 87.50, respectively). In addition, the CALCA transcript measurement mirrored the response to the pentagastrin test.
conclusionWe demonstrate that the measurement of CALCA gene transcripts in the bloodstream is feasible and may refine the management of patients with MTC and RET mutation-carrying relatives. We propose considering the application of this diagnostic tool as an alternative to the calcitonin-stimulation test.
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