• Development of a class prediction model [ Designated as safety issue: No ]
  

OBJECTIVES:

Primary

• Develop a class predictor model for each of the histologies under study, based on gene expression patterns, to distinguish benign from neoplastic endocrine tissue in patients with endocrine tumors.

Secondary

• Utilize the tissue obtained from these endocrine neoplasms for studies of gene expression changes, proteomic changes, and methylation changes in these patients.
• Perform histologic examination of these tissues, including immunohistochemistry and in situ hybridization, in order to study changes in tumor neovessel formation in these patients.
• Obtain, when accessible, adjacent normal endocrine tissue for comparison with the neoplastic tissue in these patients.
• Collect tissues from endocrine neoplasms arising in the thyroid, parathyroid, adrenal glands, pancreas, and extra-adrenal neuroendocrine rests for future analysis and correlation with clinical outcome in these patients.

OUTLINE: Patients undergo surgery for removal of endocrine tumor tissue and normal tissue for biological/laboratory studies. Samples are analyzed to evaluate tumor angiogenesis using RNA in situ hybridization, DNA methylation analysis, gene expression profiling, reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction, and immunohistochemistry.

After completion of study procedures, patients are followed at 2 months and then annually thereafter.

PROJECTED ACCRUAL: A total of 400 patients will be accrued for this study.