Circulating small extracellular vesicle-based miRNA classifier for follicular thyroid carcinoma: a multicenter diagnostics study

Discrimination between follicular thyroid carcinoma (FTC) and follicular thyroid adenoma (FTA) prior to surgery remains a major challenge in clinical practice. To evaluate the feasibility of circulating small extracellular vesicle (sEV)-associated and cell-free RNAs for non-invasive detection of FTC. The diagnostic properties of sEV long RNAs, cell-free long RNAs, sEV miRNAs, and cell-free miRNAs were compared for the detection of FTC. Overall design: 21 FTC plasma samples and 20 FTA plasma samples were collected. EV long RNAs, cell-free long RNAs, EV miRNAs, and cell-free miRNAs were pairwise detected. Cell-free small and long RNA libraries were not prepared for two participants (FTA-14 and FTA-19) due to the limited plasma samples.