Thyroid cancers express CD-40 and CD-40 ligand: cancers that express CD-40 ligand may have a greater risk of recurrence in young patients.

The immune response might suppress thyroid cancer recurrence. Although the factors that control this are unknown, CD-40 and CD-40 ligand might be important. To test this, we stained 36 papillary (PTC) and four follicular (FTC) thyroid carcinomas for CD-40 (n = 37) and CD-40 ligand (n = 36) and graded staining from absent (grade 0) to intense (grade 3).