ATM and cancer: In the majority of these studies, which were performed by methylation-specific PCR, a considerable overlap was observed in the methylation levels between benign and malignant tumors, with the exception of hypermethylation at RAR-b2 (15,16), NIS (33), TSHR (34), ECAD (26) and ATM (35), which was observed to be more prevalent in patients with papillary thyroid carcinoma than in non-malignant thyroid diseases.