Background: The autoimmune regulator (Aire) is a crucial regulator of autoimmunity in the thymoma. This study is aimed at detecting the expression of Aire in human thymoma with autoimmune diseases (AD) and investigating the clinical significance.
Methods: The expression of Aire in 79 cases of thymoma and thymoma with myasthenia gravis (MG)/other AD or not, detected by immunohistochemical SP method. Combined with thymoma and other groups, thymoma Masaoka clinical stage, thymomas WHO histological type, thymoma with MG/other AD or not. The relationship between Aire and clinicalfeatures of thymoma was analyzed.
Results: The positive rate of Aire in Tm was significant higher than that in MG, the positive rate of Aire in MG was significant higher than that in AD (49% vs. 30% vs. 12%, P<0.05). The expression of Aire was associated with thymoma Masaoka clinical stage, thymomas WHO histological type, thymoma with postoperative complications or not (P<0.05).
Conclusions: Aire is remarkably correlated with the occurrence, histological type and clinical stage of thymoma. Testing expression of Aire will be helpful for predicting the clinical diagnosis and prognosis of thymoma with AD.
