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 in 48 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.