Additionally, given its role in tumorigenesis and cancer progression, galectin-3 targeting is currently under investigation for its potential utility as treatment for thyroid cancer.<b>Areas covered</b>: Recent studies of galectin-3 as a serum marker for thyroid cancer diagnosis, and in the preclinical setting as a target for cancer imaging and therapy.<b>Expert opinion</b>: Even though current studies evaluating galectin-3 as a serum marker and target for cancer imaging and therapy are promising, further research is required before it can be adopted into routine clinical use.
In this review, the biological role of galectin-3 expression in thyroid cancer, the validation and translation to a clinical setting of a galectin-3 test method for the preoperative characterization of thyroid nodules and a galectin-3-based immuno-positron emission tomography (immuno-PET) imaging of thyroid cancer in vivo are presented and discussed.
Similar to other immune markers of HBME-1, galectin-3 and CK-19, protein expression levels of PIWIL2 was significantly up-regulated in both papillary and micropapillary thyroid cancers (p < 0.01).
However, for cancer prediction, analysis of a minimum of six genes per sample was necessary and allowed correct prediction of a benign thyroid lesion and thyroid cancer with 94% accuracy in the most discriminative set (TFF3/PLAB/TG/ADM3/HGD1/LGALS3).
Galectin-3, a lectin-family protein that appears to be involved in malignant transformation, has been reported to be an accurate immunohistochemical marker for thyroid cancer.