Clinicopathological characteristics and mutation profile of BRAF and NRAS mutation in cutaneous melanomas in the Western Turkish population

Background/aim: Malignant melanoma is the most common cause of death due to skin cancers. The most common mutations in RAFRASpathway from tumor oncogenes are BRAF and NRAS. In this study, we analyzed the frequency of BRAF and NRAS gene mutationsand investigated their association with clinicopathological features of melanomas in the Turkish population.Materials and methods: 65 primary cutaneous melanoma were included in the study. The mutations were evaluated with real-time PCRbasedPCR-array through allele-specific amplification, and the results were correlated with various clinicopathological characteristics.Results: 52.3% of the patients were female and 47.7% were male. The mean age of the patients with a mutation was lower than thosewithout mutation. 16 patients had BRAF mutation. 12 patients had NRAS mutation. NRAS mutation was statistically more common inmen (P = 0.036). The number of mitoses increased with the increase of the tumor thickness (P = 0.003). There was more mitosis in thepresence of ulceration (P = 0.05). A total of 41.7% of NRAS mutations had adjuvant chemotherapy.Conclusion: We found lower mutation rate when compared to regional studies. NRAS mutation was common in men. This is the firststudy from our region evaluating the prognostic value of clinical stage and necessity of adjuvant treatment with the presence of BRAFand NRAS mutations.