Detection of Circulating Thyroid Cancer Cells by Reverse Transcription-PCR for Thyroid-stimulating Hormone Receptor and Thyroglobulin: The Importance of Primer Selection

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Abstract
Monitoring for thyroid cancer recurrence is routinely done through measurement of serum thyroglobulin (Tg) and 131I whole-body scanning (WBS) after total thyroidectomy and radioactive iodine ablation (1). Serum Tg has been a useful marker to detect residual or metastatic disease, but its limitations include interassay variability, insufficient sensitivity of some commercial assays, and the frequent presence of interfering anti-Tg antibodies in patient serum (2)(3). Although the ability of serum Tg to detect metastatic disease improves greatly after thyroid hormone withdrawal, hormone withdrawal produces symptomatic hypothyroidism and significant morbidity in many patients.