Are estrogen receptors alpha detectable in normal and abnormal thyroid tissue?

The aims of this study is to evaluate the presence of estrogen receptors alpha (ER alpha) in thyroid lesions and to assess the practicality of this test in view of numerous disagreements on the subject. Immunohistochemical stains were performed for ER alpha, for the evaluation of immunoreactivity in 296 pathological thyroid tissue samples. We evaluated the intensity of the nuclear and cytoplasmatic staining and the spread of the stain over the sample. Thirty cases of the breast cancer served as a control group. None of the histological thyroid samples showed immunoreactivity for ER alpha. No difference was found between the various lesions in regard to this absence. The ER alpha rate of expression in the breast cancer samples was 60%. The ER alpha is undetectable in the histological samples of benign and malignant thyroid lesions. Further investigation is necessary in the laboratory immunohistochemical workup in order to exclude a possibility of non-specific staining.