Mini reviews in Endocrine-Related Cancer
Endocrine-Related Cancer is proud to publish the latest in high quality work across all aspects of the field, however we understand that in some cases, emerging themes may not yet be suitable for a full review article. Endocrine-Related Cancer has therefore launched a series of Mini Reviews. These concise, informative articles will be no more than 3000 words in length, with limited references and figures and be accompanied by graphical abstract where possible.
Two key themes of mini review are currently being commissioned, however we welcome suggestions from all area of the field:
- Technology – this collection will focus on new concepts, technology or technical applications, such as organoids on a chip etc.
- Translational science – this collection will focus on outlining the importance of translational research to our clinical community. These articles may be written in response to high impact research published elsewhere, where a clinical impact may be significant.
A collection of four further mini reviews aims to address various changes outlined in the 2022 WHO guideline on Endocrine tumour classification.
If you are interested in contributing a mini review to Endocrine-Related Cancer, please submit a full article proposal to erc@bioscientifica.com, or include within the cover letter of your submission.
Articles published in this special collection are listed below.
Explore all of the themed collections in Endocrine-Related Cancer.
Mini Reviews in Endocrine Related Cancer
Inserm U1016, CNRS UMR 8104, Institut Cochin, Université Paris Descartes-Université de Paris, Paris, France
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Department of Neurosurgery, Hôpital Universitaire Pitié-Salpêtrière, APHP, Sorbonne Université, Paris, France
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Department of Endocrinology, Center for Rare Adrenal Diseases, Hôpital Cochin APHP, Paris, France
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Lyon 1 University, Villeurbanne, France
Inserm U1052, CNRS UMR 5286, Cancer Research Center of Lyon, Lyon, France
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The classification of tumours of the pituitary gland has recently been revised in the 2021 5th edition World Health Organization (WHO) Classification of Central Nervous System Tumours (CNS5) and 2022 5th edition WHO Classification of Endocrine and Neuroendocrine Tumours (ENDO5). This brief review aims to appraise the most relevant changes and updates introduced in the two classifications. A new nomenclature has been introduced in CNS5 and ENDO5 to align adenohypophyseal tumours with the classification framework of neuroendocrine neoplasia. The term pituitary neuroendocrine tumour (PitNET) with subtype information has therefore been adopted and preferred to adenoma. Pituitary carcinoma has been replaced by metastatic PitNET. The ICD-O coding has been changed from benign to malignant in line with NETs from other organs. Histological typing and subtyping based on immunohistochemistry for lineage-restricted pituitary transcription factors are regarded as the cornerstone for accurate classification. Such an approach does not fully reflect the complexity and dynamics of pituitary tumorigenesis and the variability of transcription factors expression. ENDO5 does not support a grading and/or staging system and argues that histological typing and subtyping are more robust than proliferation rate and invasiveness to stratify tumours with low or high risk of recurrence. However, the prognostic and predictive relevance of histotype is not fully validated. Recent studies suggest the existence of clinically relevant molecular subgroups and emphasize the need for a standardized, histo-molecular integrated approach to the diagnosis of PitNETs to further our understanding of their biology and overcome the unsolved issue of grading and/or staging system.
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Comprehensive Cancer Centre Mainfranken, University of Wuerzburg Medical Centre, Wuerzburg, Germany
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Department of Medicine, Division of Endocrinology and Diabetes, University Hospital, University of Wuerzburg, Wuerzburg, Germany
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Comprehensive Cancer Centre Mainfranken, University of Wuerzburg Medical Centre, Wuerzburg, Germany
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Histopathological differentiation in pediatric adrenocortical carcinoma (pACC) is difficult and clinical prediction and stratification scores are not evaluated yet. Therefore, this review aims to summarize current evidence on the value and accuracy of the two commonly used scoring systems (Weiss/Armed Forces Institute of Pathology (AFIP)) pACC. On this base, one might be able to evaluate if patients may benefit from a unique scoring system. For this, we performed a systematic review of the published literature and included 128 patients in our analysis. The majority (72%) of the pACCs had a good clinical course. The follow-up time ranged from 0 to 420 months with a mean age of 5.6 years at diagnosis. Patients with a good clinical course were younger (mean 4.8 years) than patients with a poor outcome (mean 7.6 years). Comparing the two scoring systems, the specificity of the Weiss score was very low (25%), whereas the sensitivity was 100%. According to the AFIP score, specificity (77%) was higher than the Weiss score, whereas the sensitivity of the AFIP score was minimal lower with 92%. Age differences were recognizable as the specificity was lower in infants <4 years (20%) than in older children (32%). In contrast, the specificity of the AFIP score was higher in infants <4 years (82%) than in older age groups (76%). Summarizing our results, we could show that the Weiss score is not a suitable tool for the prediction of malignancy in pACC in comparison with the AFIP score, but further efforts may seek to ensure early and accurate stratification through augmented scoring.
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Graphical abstract
Abstract
Minimalistic management options such as active surveillance and thyroid lobectomy are increasingly being accepted as reasonable management options for properly selected patients with low-risk papillary thyroid cancer. Leveraging technologies developed for the treatment of benign thyroid nodules, ultrasound-guided percutaneous thermal ablation is now being evaluated as a potential additional minimalistic management option for small, intrathyroidal, low-risk papillary thyroid cancer. Published retrospective data on more than 5000 low-risk papillary thyroid cancer patients treated with thermal ablation indicate that with appropriate training and proper patient selection, these technologies can be safely and effectively applied to papillary microcarcinomas. When compared to immediate surgery, thermal ablation appears to have lower complication rates with similar short-term rates of recurrence. Proper patient selection is facilitated by the use of a clinical framework which integrates imaging characteristics, patient characteristics, and medical team characteristics to classify a patient as ideal, appropriate, or inappropriate for minimalistic management options (active surveillance, thyroid lobectomy, or thermal ablation). While retrospective in nature and lacking randomized prospective clinical trial data, currently available data do support the proposition that thermal ablation technologies reliably destroy papillary thyroid microcarcinoma lesions and are associated with clinically acceptable oncologic outcomes when done by experienced teams in properly selected patients.
Department of Pathology and Cancer Diagnostics, Karolinska University Hospital, Stockholm, Sweden
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Endocrine Oncology Site, Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, Toronto, ON, Canada
Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathobiology, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada
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The fifth edition of the Classification of Endocrine and Neuroendocrine Tumors has been released by the World Health Organization. This timely publication integrates several changes to the nomenclature of non-neoplastic and neoplastic thyroid diseases, as well as novel concepts that are essential for patient management. The heterogeneous group of non-neoplastic and benign neoplastic lesions are now collectively termed as ‘thyroid follicular nodular disease’ to better reflect the clonal and non-clonal proliferations that clinically present as multinodular goiter. Thyroid neoplasms originating from follicular cells are distinctly divided into benign, low-risk and malignant neoplasms. The new classification scheme stresses that papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC) should be subtyped based on histomorphologic features irrespective of tumor size to avoid treating all sub-centimeter/small lesions as low-risk disease. Formerly known as the cribriform-morular variant of PTC is redefined as cribriform-morular thyroid carcinoma since this tumor is now considered a distinct malignant thyroid neoplasm of uncertain histogenesis. The ‘differentiated high-grade thyroid carcinoma’ is a new diagnostic category including PTCs, follicular thyroid carcinomas and oncocytic carcinomas with high-grade features associated with poorer prognosis similar to the traditionally defined poorly differentiated thyroid carcinoma as per Turin criteria. In addition, squamous cell carcinoma of the thyroid is now considered a morphologic pattern/subtype of anaplastic thyroid carcinoma. In this review, we will highlight the key changes in the newly devised fifth edition of the WHO classification scheme of thyroid tumors with reflections on its applicability in patient management and future directions in this field.
