Proteomics, and metabolomics: magnetic resonance spectroscopy for the presurgical screening of thyroid nodules

Abstract

We review the progress and state-of-the-art applications of studies in Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy (MRS) and Imaging as an aid for diagnosis of thyroid lesions of different nature, especially focusing our attention to those lesions that are cytologically undetermined. It appears that the high-resolution of High-Resolution Magic-Angle-Spinning (HRMAS) MRS improves the overall accuracy of the analysis of thyroid lesions to a point that a significant improvement in the diagnosis of cytologically undetermined lesions can be expected. This analysis, in the meantime, allows a more precise comprehension of the alterations in the metabolic pathways induced by the development of the different tumors. Although these results are promising, at the moment, a clinical application of the method to the common workup of thyroid nodules cannot be used, due to both the limitation in the availability of this technology and the wide range of techniques, that are not uniformly used. The coming future will certainly see a wider application of these methods to the clinical practice in patients affected with thyroid nodules and various other neoplastic diseases.

Keywords: Cytology; Fine-needle aspiration; High-resolution magic-angle-spinning; Magnetic resonance spectroscopy; Metabolomics; Proteomics; Thyroid cancer.; Thyroid nodules.