The Relationship of the BRAFV600E Mutation and the Established Prognostic Factors in Papillary Thyroid Carcinomas

摘要

It has been shown that BRAFV600E mutation in papillary thyroid carcinomas (PTC) is associated both with pathogenesis and poor prognosis. In this study, we aimed to investigate the relationship of the BRAFV600E mutation and the established prognostic factors in a cohort of Turkish patients with PTC. Forty-six cases of papillary thyroid carcinoma have been evaluated for the presence of BRAFV600E mutation. BRAFV600E has been examined by restriction fragment length polymorphism. BRAFV600E mutation status has been compared with well-known histopathological and clinical prognostic parameters such as invasion of thyroid capsule, extrathyroidal extension, and the presence of lymph node and/or distant metastasis. We have found that BRAFV600E mutation was present in the majority of our cases (40/46). Considering the stage of the disease, five of the negative cases were in stage 1 while the remaining one was in stage 2. Only one BRAFV600E negative case has shown extrathyroidal extension and lymph node metastasis. All four patients with distant metastasis had BRAFV600E mutation. Statistical analyses revealed that there are no significant relationship between the BRAFV600E mutation and the established prognostic factors. We found a relatively higher BRAFV600E mutation rate in classical type PTC than in other similar studies. We think that the limited number of our cases may either weaken or mask some potentially important relationship between BRAFV600E mutation and the established prognostic factors.