Hürthle cell
Thyroid follicles lined by deeply eosinophilic Hürthle cells are seen in Hashimoto disease
A Hürthle cell is a transformed (metaplasia) thyroid follicular cell with "enlarged mitochondria and enlarged round nuclei with prominent nucleoli", resulting in eosinophilia in the cytoplasm.
Oncocytes in the thyroid are often called Hürthle cells. Although the terms oncocyte, oxyphil cell, and Hürthle cell are used interchangeably, "Hürthle cell" is used only to indicate cells of thyroid follicular origin.
Diseases
While Hurthle cells can occur in healthy thyroid glands, they are often associated with Hashimoto's thyroiditis and Graves' disease.
Hürthle cell neoplasms can be separated into Hürthle cell adenomas (benign tumours) and carcinomas (malignant tumours) arising from the follicular epithelium of the thyroid gland. The latter is a relatively rare form of differentiated thyroid cancer, accounting for only 3-10% of all differentiated thyroid cancers, and was formerly considered a subtype of follicular thyroid cancer. The mitochondrial DNA of Hürthle cell carcinoma contain somatic mutations. Hürthle cell carcinomas consists of at least 75% Hürthle cells.
Diagnosis
Hürthle cell adenomas are most likely diagnosed much more frequently than Hürthle cell carcinomas.
Typically a painless thyroid mass is found in patients with this type of cancer.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Hürthle cell” as thyroid follicles lined by deeply eosinophilic Hürthle cells are seen in Hashimoto disease. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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This entry incorporates text from “Hürthle cell” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.