BRAF mutation correlates with recurrent papillary thyroid carcinoma in Chinese patients

We investigated correlations of somatic BRAF V600E mutation and RET/PTC1 rearrangement with recurrent disease in Chinese patients with papillary thyroid carcinoma (ptc).

This prospective study included 214 patients with ptc histologically confirmed between November 2009 and May 2011 at a single institute.

We found somatic BRAF V600E mutation in 68.7% and RET/PTC1 rearrangement in 25.7% of the patients. Although BRAF mutation was not significantly associated with clinicopathologic features such as patient sex or age, multicentric disease, thyroid capsule invasion, tumour stage, or nodal metastasis, it was significantly associated with recurrent disease. Multivariate analysis revealed that BRAF mutation and tumour size were independent risk factors associated with recurrent disease, with odds ratios of 9.072 and 2.387 respectively. The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve increased 8.3% when BRAF mutation was added to the traditional prognostic factors, but that effect was statistically nonsignificant (0.663 vs. 0.746, p = 0.124). RET/PTC1 rearrangement and nodal metastasis were significantly associated in all patients (p = 0.042), marginally associated in ptc patients (p = 0.051), but not associated in microptc patients (p = 0.700). RET/PTC1 rearrangement was not significantly associated with recurrent disease.

BRAF positivity is an independent predictor of recurrent disease in ptc.