Somatostatin Receptor Expression in Thyroid Carcinomas: Implications for Diagnostics and Therapy

Somatostatin receptors (sst) possess inhibitory effects in many tissues and have increasing diagnostic and therapeutic implications including subtype-specific scintigraphy and radiotherapy. In thyroid carcinomas expression of sst was reported but the significance of single subtypes is still unknown. In order to evaluate the clinical impact of sst in non-medullary thyroid cancer, we analyzed protein expression of sst2 and 3. Furthermore, in vitro data were compared with sst2-specific scintigraphy using 111In-pentetreotide (111In-P). Sst2 staining was performed in 23 follicular and 95 papillary thyroid carcinomas while sst3 expression was analyzed in 7 follicular and 39 papillary tumors.