This Week in the Journal of Clinical Pathology

In the Journal of Clinical Pathology, Daniel Ezra at Moorfields Eye Hospital NHS Trust and his colleagues report that there are changes in the expression levels of genes in the Wnt and IGF-1 signaling pathway that are associated with thyroid-associated orbitopathy, or TAO. In their case-controlled study, the researchers examined gene expression levels in orbital fat samples from patients with untreated, active, inflamed TAO and from controls without TAO. Ezra et al. report that a number of genes, including IGF-1 and its receptor binding genes and downstream regulator genes, are differentially expressed in TAO, and that genes in the Wnt signaling pathway are dysregulated. The authors note that their report is the first to implicate IGF-1 signaling in TAO.

Also in the Journal of Clinical Pathology, the Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin's Carsten Denkert and his colleagues evaluated the performance of the RNA-based EndoPredict multigene test on evaluating core biopsies and surgical specimens of breast cancer. The researchers report that while the core biopsies yielded less RNA, the EndoPredict scores were comparable. "The data suggest that the EndoPredict score can be reliably determined in core biopsy specimens," they add.