Differentiated Thyroid Cancer in Severe Insulin Resistance

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

Background/Objective: Hyperinsulinemia and insulin resistance (IR) are associated with increased cancer risk. Patients with severe IR due to lipodystrophy or mutations of the insulin receptor have increased thyroid nodule prevalence at young ages, and papillary thyroid cancer (PTC) has occurred. We describe thyroid cancer cases in severe IR and analyze prevalence and clinical and pathologic features of PTC in cohorts with severe IR, mild IR, and euglycemic controls. Methods: PTC prevalence in severe IR was compared with SEER database population data. Cross-sectional comparison was performed in 70 patients with PTC (6 severe IR, 13 type 2 diabetes, and 51 controls). Main outcome measure(s) were PTC prevalence, tumor characteristics, and immunohistochemistry. Results: mutation status. Conclusion: This study suggests that severe IR syndromes are associated with increased PTC risk. However, there were no differences in PTC characteristics between groups with varying degrees of IR. Mechanisms linking severe IR with PTC development require further investigation.