Expression of EGFRvIII in Thyroid Carcinoma: Immunohistochemical Study by Camel Antibodies

Abstract

Patients with poor prognosis in thyroid cancers resistant to currently available therapeutic modalities are often in search of a new treatment. The epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) vIII, a ligand-independent, constitutively active, mutated form of EGFR has been shown to play a role in the pathogenesis of some cancers. Consequently, the immunohistochemical detection of EGFRvIII with novel camel antibodies, which are valuable for their ability to interact with less antigenic epitopes in contrast to the conventional antibodies, might be worthy in diagnostic techniques of thyroid neoplasms. EGFRvIII was evaluated on paraffin-embedded tissue specimens of 40 samples of follicular carcinomas, papillary carcinomas, medullary carcinomas, follicular adenomas, and goiter of the thyroid gland by immunohistochemistry. Positive immunostaining of neoplastic tissues with camel and rabbit polyclonal, as a control, were 81.3% and 39.1%, respectively. No goiter tissue was stained with either antibody preparation. Also, the results showed that the sensitivity of camel heavy chain antibodies (65%) is higher in contrast to conventional rabbit under the same conditions (39.1%). Considering the results of this study, exploiting the smaller heavy chain antibodies of camels against EGFRvIII seems promising in the diagnosis procedures of thyroid neoplasms.