Association of BRAF V600E Mutation with Poor Clinicopathological Outcomes in 500 Consecutive Cases of Papillary Thyroid Carcinoma

TLDR: The data suggest that BRAF V600E mutation is associated with high-risk PTC and in particular in follicular variant with invasive tumor growth.

Abstract: Context: Because very few studies have examined the correlation between BRAF mutations and clinicopathological features of papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC), we analyzed here a large and homogeneous cohort of patients with PTC for the presence of the BRAF mutation. Objective: We examined BRAF mutations in a consecutive series of 500 PTC patients who underwent surgery in the Department of Surgery of the University of Pisa, and we correlated the presence of the mutation with clinicopathological parameters of the patients: age, gender, tumor size, presence of tumor capsule, extrathyroidal invasion, multicentricity, presence of node metastases, and tumor class. Design: BRAF (exon 15) mutation was examined by PCR-single strand conformational polymorphism followed by DNA sequencing in laser-capture microdissected tissue samples. Results: In this study, BRAF mutation was found in 219 of 500 cases (43.8%). In particular, we found the most common BRAF V600E mutation in 214 cases (42.8%), BRAF K601E mutation in thr...