ABSTRACT
Objective:
To investigate the relationship between BRAF V600E
gene mutation and
ultrasonography manifestations as well as the lesion invasiveness in
thyroid cancer.
Methods:
A total of 153
patients pathologically diagnosed as
thyroid cancer after
surgery who underwent
thyroidectomy in Shanxi Provincial
Cancer Hospital from January 2018 to October 2019 were selected, including 146 cases of
papillary thyroid carcinoma.
Ultrasonography was performed before operation.
Paraffin embedded
tissue after operation was used to detect BRAF V600E
gene mutation. According to the results of BRAF V600E
gene detection,
patients were divided into
mutation group and non-
mutation group. The
ultrasonic characteristics of the two groups were compared. The relationship of BRAF V600E
gene mutation with
ultrasonic characteristics, clinicopathological characteristics as well as cervical
lymph node metastasis was analyzed by using
logistic regression.
Results:
There were 130 cases (85.0%) of BRAF V600E
gene mutation and 23 cases of BRAF V600E
gene non-
mutation in 153
patients with
thyroid cancer. Among 146 cases with
papillary thyroid carcinoma, there were 128 cases (87.7%) of BRAF V600E
gene mutation. The percentage of
patients with the unclear boundary between
thyroid lesions and
capsule in BRAF V600E
gene mutation group was higher than that of
patients in non-
mutation group, and the difference was statistically significant [46.9% (60/128) vs. 11.1% (2/18), χ 2 = 8.261, P = 0.004]. There were no significant differences in age,
gender, nodule long diameter, aspect ratio, nodal
location, internal calcification, internal echo, echo uniformity, cystic solid, nodal shape, boundary clarity,
blood flow signal, the number of
tumor site,
lymph node metastasis and
nodular goiter between BRAF
gene mutation group and non-
mutation group (all P > 0.05). The results of
logistic regression analysis showed that only the boundary clarity between
thyroid lesions and
capsule was an independent influencing factor of BRAF V600E
gene mutation ( OR = 14.400, 95% CI 1.847-112.246, P = 0.011),
tumor lesion size was an independent influencing factor of cervical
lymph node metastasis in
papillary thyroid carcinoma ( OR = 2.714, 95% CI 1.335-5.517, P = 0.006).
Conclusions:
In
papillary thyroid carcinoma, BRAF V600E
gene mutation is related with lesion and the unclear boundary between the
tumor and
capsule, but not related with
lymph node metastasis. The size of the
tumor lesion is associated with
lymph node metastasis.