prevalence of brafv600e mutation and human parvovirus b19 infection in thyroid cancer

Background]thyroid carcinoma, the most prevalent endocrine malignancy, has increased rapidly in recent decades. a singlebase substitution in the braf gene is identified as the most common genetic event in thyroid carcinoma. infections with both dna and rna viruses can induce chronic inflammatory diseases and cancer. human parvovirus b19 (b19v) infection has been implicated in thyroid cancer as the most common inflammation of the endocrine system.[objectives]the study aimed to determine the prevalence of the braf^v600e gene mutation and the presence of b19v infection in malignant and nonmalignant thyroid tissue samples. [methods]a crosssectional study was performed from january 2012 to december 2017 on 108 paraffinembedded thyroid tissues from patients with thyroid cancer tumor and nodular goiter. after dna extraction, pcr restriction fragment length polymorphism (pcrrflp) and nested pcr assays were used to detect the braf^v600e gene mutation and b19v dna in tissue specimens, respectively. to confirm pcrrflp reliability, the amplified products were subjected to dna sequencing. statistical analysis was performed to determine a possible correlation between the occurrence of braf^v600e mutations and clinicopathological characteristics, such as tumor subtypes, gender, age, and b19v presence.[results]overall, braf^v600e mutation was detected in 77 out of 108 patients (71.3%) using pcrrflp, confirmed by dna sequencing analysis. using nested pcr, human parvovirus b19 dna was detected in 14 out of 108 (13%) of the formalinfixed, paraffinembedded (ffpe) tissue specimens. statistical analysis showed a significant difference in the prevalence of the braf^v600e mutation in thyroid cancer patients when compared with the control group (p ≤ 0.001). [conclusions]since cytological examinations depend on fine needle aspiration of the thyroid (fnab) cannot be conclusive; hence it might be suggested that detection of the braf^v600e gene mutation can be considered as a feasible assay. however, a low detection rate of the b19v dna in ffpe tissue samples suggests that b19v infection is not associated with thyroid cancer.