Correlation Between BrafV600E Positive and Recurrence And Poor Prognosis In Preoperative Fine Needle Aspiration Biopsy Of Papillary Thyroid Carcinoma

ABSTRACT
Aim: Papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC) accounts for 80% of all thyroid malignancies and is one of the most responsive thyroid malignancies to treatment. There are three different Raf kinases implicated in the molecular genetics of tumorigenesis for the development of papillary thyroid cancer: ARAF, BRAF (BRAFV600E), and CRAF. Among the BRAFV600E mutations, T1799A ( V600E amino acid translocation) is the most common and also observed in thyroid cancer. In our study, we aimed to establish the association between BRAFV600E positivity in preoperative fine needle aspiration biopsy and prognostic factors in patients with recurrence.
Methods: Preoperative fine-needle aspiration biopsy slides were obtained from patients who had previously undergone surgery for PTC and had recurrence. The cancerous areas on the slides were marked and DNA was isolated from cells within the marked areas. The presence of the BRAFV600E mutation was established from the DNA using the pyrosequencing method. Other patient prognostic criteria regarding the recurrence of PTC was also recorded and their correlation with the BRAFV600E mutation was statistically analyzed.
Results: In patients who underwent surgery for recurrence of papillary thyroid cancer, the BRAFV600E positivity rate was 70.8% of the study group. Furthermore, capsular invasion, soft tissue invasion, stage, recurrence time, and lymph node metastasis positively correlated with BRAFV600E mutation.
Conclusion: A positive correlation between BRAF mutation and some poor prognostic criteria in PTC was observed.
Keywords: Thyroid, papillary, fine needle biopsy, poor prognosis, BRAFV600E, cytology