Endocrine Abstracts

Objective: The purpose of this retrospective study was to correlate BRAF (V600E) mutation with clinicopathological characteristics in papillary thyroid microcarcinoma (PTMC).

Methods: We reviewed the clinical records of patients who were operated for a papillary thyroid microcarcinoma (PTMC) between May 2011 and October 2012 in Inje University Haeundae Paik Hospital. We investigated the prevalence of the BRAF (V600E) mutation, and relations between the presence of BRAF (V600E) mutation and clinicopathological characteristics (age, sex, tumour size, multiplicity, lymph node status and extrathyroid tissue invasion).

Results: Total 137 patients were included; 121 (88.3%) were female and 16 (11.7%) were male patients, aged from 22 to 74 years (mean age, 46.4 years). Median tumour size was 0.56 cm, ranging from 0.10 to 0.95 cm. The BRAF (V600E) mutation was identified in 82 patients (59.9%). Sixty patients (43.8%) had capsular invasion and 32 (23.4%) presented with some kind of extrathyroidal invasion of the tumour. Thirty-six patients had lymph node metastases; 32 (23.4%) to the central neck and 4 (2.9%) to the lateral neck. Three of four patients (75%) with lateral neck node metastases had BRAF (V600E) mutation, although this was not statistically significant. No statistically significant association was found between the BRAF (V600E) mutation and clinicopathological characteristics (age, sex, tumor size, multiplicity, lymph node status, capsular invasion and extrathyroid tissue invasion) of PTMC.

Conclusion: There was no significant association between the BRAF (V600E) mutation and any of the clinicopathological characteristics. However, we have noted that the prevalence of lateral neck node metastases was more frequent in patients with BRAF (V600E) mutation than those with WT BRAF, but this trend was not statistically significant.