MSACL 2018 EU Abstract

Isabella Piga (1,2), Giulia Capitoli (3), Silvia Tettamanti (1), Vanna Denti (1), Andrew Smith (1), Clizia Chinello (1), Martina Stella (1), Davide Leni (4), Mattia Garancini (5), Stefania Galimberti (3), Fulvio Magni (1) and Fabio Pagni (2)
(1) University of Milano-Bicocca, Department of Medicine and Surgery, Clinical Proteomics and Metabolomics Unit, Italy (2) University of Milano-Bicocca, Department of Medicine and Surgery, Section of Pathology, Italy (3) University of Milano-Bicocca, Department of Medicine and Surgery, Centre of Biostatistics for Clinical Epidemiology, Italy (4) San Gerardo Hospital, Department of Radiology, Italy (5) San Gerardo Hospital, Department of Surgery, Italy

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Isabella Piga (Presenter) University of Milano-Bicocca

Presenter Bio: I obtained a bachelor degree in Chemistry from the University of Cagliari. The bachelor internship sparked an interest in analytical sciences and resulted in the following of the analytical chemistry master program at the University of Pisa.
I decided to continue my academic career and I have attended the PhD School in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the University of Siena. As part of the PhD program, I have worked at the Center for Proteomics and Metabolomics in the Mass Spectrometry Imaging group, LUMC, the Netherlands.
I am currently a Post-Doc at the University of Milano-Bicocca and my work is mostly focus on mass spectrometry imaging proteomics and clinical application. My main project is focused on the MALDI-Imaging analysis of thyroid fine needle aspiration biopsies and the classification of the thyroid nodule lesions.

Relevant Financial Disclosures (within past 24 months, reported on Mar 05, 2026) No relevant financial relationship(s) to disclose. Discussing Products? NO, presenter will NOT present educational content related to products/services of the ineligible company(ies) listed above. Conflict mitigation NOT REQUIRED.

Thyroid lesions diagnosis is performed by image-guided fine needle aspiration biopsy (FNAB) regarded as a gold standard procedure. However, about 25% of FNABs are considered as “indeterminate for malignancy” and surgery is commonly recommended. Nevertheless, final histology highlight that 80% of them are benign lesions. Matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization mass spectrometry imaging (MALDI-MSI) enables to explore the spatial distribution of biomarkers directly on cytological specimens, by integrating molecular and morphological evidence. This study focus on the proteomic profile stability of cytological samples in well-known preservative solutions, in order to have a standard methodology for the proteomic MALDI-MSI analysis of thyroid FNABs.