PSAT374 Prognostic Utility of BRAF V600E Mutation as a Risk Factor for Tumor Recurrence among Filipino Patients with Papillary Thyroid Cancer

Abstract Background Epidemiological studies have shown that Filipinos have a higher prevalence of well-differentiated thyroid cancer and a higher rate of recurrence amongst the different ethnicities. The BRAF V600E mutation has long been proposed as a potential prognostic marker in aggressive papillary thyroid cancers. In this study, we determined whether BRAF V600E mutation can be a novel risk factor for tumor recurrence in papillary thyroid cancer. Methodology We conducted an age and sex-matched case-control study of 14 patients for each arm using the histopathologic diagnosis of papillary thyroid cancer and with an available paraffin block as sample source. Pertinent demographic, clinical and histopathologic data were collected. The BRAF V600E mutation was detected using polymerase chain reaction following DNA extraction from the paraffin-embedded tissue blocks. Multivariate logistic regression was performed to determine the association between presence of BRAF V600E mutation with tumor recurrence at 95% confidence interval. Results The BRAF V600E mutation prevalence was at 32.14% (95% CI: 15.88-52.35%) for all cases; 21.43% (95% CI: 4.66-50.80%) among those with recurrence and 42.86% (95% CI: 17.66-71.14%) among those without recurrence. There was insufficient evidence to prove a significant association between BRAF V600E mutation and recurrence, OR 0.50 (95% CI: 0.08-2.34, p = 0.327). Conclusion Our study showed that there was a trend towards no association between BRAF V600E mutation and recurrence. However, due to the small sample size, we cannot accurately establish an association between the presence of the BRAF V600E mutation and increased recurrence rates among Filipinos diagnosed with papillary thyroid cancer. Despite the dismal results, we still opted to present the results of our study as there were many challenges encountered in the molecular diagnosis of thyroid cancer in developing countries like the Philippines. This opens the many possibilities for future studies and collaborations amongst different institutions to firmly establish the role of BRAF V600E in Filipinos with papillary thyroid cancer tumor recurrence. Presentation: Saturday, June 11, 2022 1:00 p.m. - 3:00 p.m.