The Relationship between BRAF V600E Mutation and the Clinicopathological Features of the Papillary Thyroid Carcinoma

There has been a dramatic increase in the morbidity of papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC), which accounts for more than 85% to 90% of all thyroid malignancies. A somatic BRAF V600E oncogenic mutation has been deemed as the most frequent genetic alteration that occurs in approximately 32% - 83% of papillary thyroid cancer cases, associated with more aggressive clinical behaviors and worse prognosis. Nevertheless, the prognostic value of the BRAF V600E mutation remains to be confirmed. Herein, we examined BRAF V600E mutation by performing qPCR as well as immunohistochemistry (IHC), and analyzed the relationship between BRAF V600E mutation status and multiple clinicopathological features of a total of 188 patients with PTC. There was no significant difference in the prevalence of BRAF V600E mutation, with regard to patient gender (χ2 = 1.252, P = 0.263), ethnicity (χ2 = 0.756, P = 0.384) and age (younger than 40 years versus 40 years or older, χ2 = 0.002, P = 0.957). Also, our study found no association between the frequency of V600E mutation and various pathological characteristics of PTC, including calcification (χ2 = 0.2186, P = 0.640), hashimoto (χ2 = 0.072, P = 0.789), tumor size (χ2 = 1.453, P = 0.228), tumor multifocality (χ2 = 0.183, P = 0.668), thyroid capsular invasion (χ2 = 0.138, P = 0.710), vascular invasion (χ2 = 1.132, P = 0.860) and lymph node metastasis (χ2 = 0.080, P = 0.777). Considering that the mutation is widespread in the PTC, we speculate that this mutation is related to tumorigenesis rather than tumor progression. Moreover, we evaluated the clinical value of immunohistochemical strategy for detecting V600E mutation in comparison to qPCR method. Of the 188 patients with PTCs in the present study, the mutation was identified in 153 (81.38%) cases by immunohistochemistry (IHC), while it was detected in 160 (85.11%) patients by using PCR assay. we can conclude that PCR method presents a superior sensitivity compared to IHC.