Hyalinizing trabecular tumors of the thyroid: a variant of papillary carcinoma?

Ret proto-oncogene rearrangements are common in papillary thyroid carcinoma. The relationship of hyalinizing trabecular tumors (HTT) to papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC) was analyzed in a recent report in which the presence of RET rearrangements was detected by reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) and immunohistochemistry in several HTT. This commentary examines this report and related studies in the literature emphasizing the limitations of these approaches and the practical implications of these findings.