The prognostic significance of gender remains controversial for papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC). In this study, we investigated the associations between gender and prognosis in a large cohort of patients with PTC or PTMC that was diagnosed in 2010–2013 and recorded in the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results cancer registry. The mean ± standard deviation duration of survival for all patients with PTC during the study period was 21.47 ± 14.04 months. In Kaplan-Meier analyses of the entire cohort of PTC patients, survival curves for all-cause death and cancer-specific death declined more sharply for men than for women. Similar results were observed in analyses of patients with PTCs > 1 cm and PTMC. After adjusting for potential confounders, hazard rates indicated significantly elevated all-cause mortality for men in analyses of all PTCs, PTCs > 1 cm, and PTMCs. However, in a confounder-adjusted analysis of patients with PTMC, the hazard rate did not indicate significantly higher mortality for men than for women. Our study demonstrated that male gender is an independent poor prognostic factor for all PTCs and for PTCs > 1 cm. However, gender is not an independent prognostic factor for cause-specific survival in PTMC.

BackgroundWhether sonography is an appropriate imaging modality for cervical lymph nodes in patients with papillary thyroid microcarcinoma (PTMC) remains unclear. Hence, this study aimed to evaluate the diagnostic value of ultrasonography (US) features for lymph node metastasis in PTMC.MethodsSeven hundred twelve patients with PTMC who underwent conventional ultrasonography examinations of the cervical lymph nodes were included. All included cases underwent total thyroidectomy plus prophylactic central lymph node dissection. The included lymph nodes were marked superficially, and the corresponding lymph nodes were completely removed and sent for pathological examination. The US features of lymph nodes with and without metastasis were compared, and the odds ratios of the suspicious US features were determined with univariate and multivariate analyses.ResultsRound shape, loss of an echogenic fatty hilum, cystic change, calcification, and abnormal vascularity were significantly more common in metastatic than nonmetastatic lymph nodes, whereas the boundary and echo did not significantly differ. Multivariate logistic regression analysis showed that round shape, loss of echogenic fatty hilum, cystic change, calcification, and abnormal vascularity were independent predictive factors for the assessment of metastatic lymph nodes. Round shape had the highest sensitivity of all variables, while loss of an echogenic fatty hilum had the highest specificity and accuracy. The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve, which was calculated to verify the relationship between the various US features and metastatic lymph nodes, was 0.793.ConclusionsOur study found that the US features of round shape, cystic change, calcification, loss of echogenic fatty hilum, and abnormal vascularity were useful sonographic criteria for differentiating between cervical lymph nodes with and without metastasis.

Previous studies revealed that the long non-coding RNA nuclear paraspeckle assembly transcript 1 (NEAT1) exhibits abnormal expression in numerous cancer types, including breast cancer (BC); however, the regulatory mechanism of NEAT1 in BC remains unclear. In the present study, the effect of NEAT1 on the progression of BC and its regulation mechanism was investigated. The expression levels of NEAT1 and microRNA-107 (miR-107) in BC cells were analyzed using the reverse transcription-quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR). NEAT1 was knocked down in BC cells, and mimics-miR-107 or inhibitor-miR-107 were transfected into BC cells. Subsequently, cell proliferation, invasion and migration, apoptosis and cell cycle distribution were determined. The regulatory mechanism of NEAT1, miR-107 and carnitine palmitoyltransferase-1 (CPT1A) was analyzed using a luciferase reporter assay system, western blotting and RT-qPCR. NEAT1 expression was increased in BC cells, whereas miR-107 expression was decreased, compared with normal mammary gland cells. NEAT1 promoted the progression of BC cells through inhibiting apoptosis-associated genes and promoting cell cycle-and invasion-associated gene expression, whereas miR-107 served the opposite function. Furthermore, NEAT1 promoted the expression of CPT1A, which was mediated by miR-107. The results of the present study indicate that NEAT1 promotes the expression of CPT1A by inhibiting miR-107 to improve the progression of BC cells; therefore, NEAT1 is a potential therapeutic target of BC.