Publications by authors named "K Burman"

Background: Thyroid cancer (TC) remains a significant clinical challenge worldwide, with a subset of patients facing aggressive disease progression and therapeutic resistance. Immune checkpoint inhibitors targeting programmed death-ligand 1 (PD-L1) have emerged as promising therapeutic approaches for various malignancies, yet their efficacy in TC remains uncertain. The objective of this study was to investigate PD-L1 expression in aggressive TC and its association with histological subtypes, molecular mutation, and progression-free survival.

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Context: Supraphysiologic thyroxine (T4) doses are used in intermediate and high-risk patients with differentiated thyroid cancer (IR/HR-DTC) to suppress tumor progression by thyrotropin (TSH). However, preclinical data suggest that T4 can also act as a growth stimulus for cancer, but there is no clinical evidence supporting this claim.

Objective: We analyzed the association between free T4 (FT4) and progression-free survival (PFS) in patients with IR/HR-DTC.

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Context: Serum thyroglobulin (Tg) measured by immunometric assay (IMA) is prone to underestimation due to Tg autoantibody (TgAb) interference, often prompting reflex Tg measurement by liquid chromatography/tandem mass spectrometry (MS) or radioimmunoassay (RIA).

Objective: IMA, MS, and RIA methodologies were used to measure serum Tg in TgAb-negative (TgAb-) and TgAb-positive (TgAb+) patients with either distant metastatic differentiated thyroid cancer (DTC) or hyperthyroidism (HY)-patients in whom a detectable serum Tg would be expected.

Results: When TgAb was absent, all methodologies detected Tg in the sera of all DTC and HY patients and reported appropriate Tg trends and treatment responses for DTC patients with progressive distant metastatic disease, albeit with high between-method variability (> 30% coefficient of variability).

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Background: The incidence of thyroid cancer in women is 3-4-fold higher than in men. To characterize sex-specific molecular alterations in thyroid cancer, we examined the expression of sex-biased genes in normal thyroids and thyroid tumors.

Methods: Ingenuity pathways analysis was used to define sex-biased gene networks using data from the Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA).

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Background/objective: Cribriform-morular thyroid carcinoma (CMTC) was considered a variant of papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC) but is a separate entity in the 2022 World Health Organization classification. CMTC has an association with familial adenomatous polyposis (FAP). Our objective is to report a case of CMTC who was subsequently diagnosed with FAP, to highlight these associated entities and implications for management.

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