Correlation between BRAF~（V600E） mutation and clinicopathological features in pediatric papillary thyroid carcinoma

In adults, the presence of the BRAF~（V600E） mutation in papillary thyroid cancer（PTC） has been demonstrated to be strongly associated with aggressive cancer-cell characteristics and poor patient prognosis. In contrast, the frequency of this mutation in pediatric PTC has undergone limited study, and the few available estimates range from 0 to 63%. Furthermore, the role of the BRAF~（V600E） mutation in pediatric PTC is controversial; thus, the present study aimed to investigate the prevalence and role of the BRAF~（V600E） mutation in48 pediatric patients with PTC, aged 3–13 years. Of these patients, 41 were diagnosed with classic PTC, five were found to have a follicular variant of PTC, and two to exhibit a diffuse sclerosing PTC variant. The BRAF~（V600E） mutation was identified to be present in 35.4% of the 48 analyzed patients, and in 41.5% of the patients diagnosed with classical PTC. Furthermore, the presence of the BRAF~（V600E） mutation was found to be associated with a patient age at diagnosis of less than ten years（P=0.011）, the performance of a thyroidectomy（P=0.03）, exhibited tumor multifocality（P=0.02） and/or extra-thyroidal invasion（P=0.003）, and both a low MACIS（Metastases, Age, Completeness of resection, Invasion, Size）（P=0.036） and AMES（Age, Metastasis, Extent of tumor,Size）（P=0.001）score. Together, these data suggest that the presence of the BRAF~（V600E） mutation may be negatively correlated with partial aggressive clinicopathological features of pediatric PTC.