Mass Spectrometry and Mass Spectrometry Imaging-based Thyroid Cancer Analysis

Thyroid carcinoma is one of the most common endocrine malignant diseases worldwide. With the rapid development of medical technology, early and effective diagnostic methods could be able to improve the survival rate and quality of life of patients suffering from the disease. Considering the complexity of cancer, some specific detection method is desired for diagnosis and treatment. Mass spectrometry imaging (MSI) is an emerging technique for acquiring molecular information from biological tissues without staining and labeling, including qualitative, quantitative and spatial distribution information. Over the past several decades, MSI has been widely used for pharmacological monitoring, biomolecular imaging of cells and tissues. In this review, we introduce the tumor progression and histological characteristics of thyroid cancer, and focus mainly on the preparation of biological specimens for MSI and mass spectrometry (MS) analysis, as well as the recent progress in MS and MSI-based thyroid cancer research. This review thoroughly discusses the importance of MS and MSI for clinical diagnosis, identification and prognosis of thyroid cancer, and provides some new clues for molecular mechanisms research and tumor metastasis.