Immunohistochemical Detection of BRAF in Iraqi Women with Different Breast Tumors

Background Breast cancer is the most common form of neoplasm and is leading cause of cancer death among women worldwide. This study examined the impact of BRAF in Iraqi breast cancer patients and explored the association between the BRAF expression and clinicopathological parameters. Aim The aim of this study was to determine the BRAF status and investigate its relation to histopathological parameters. Patients and Methods A total 60 retrospective breast cases were studied, 47 out of 60 were malignant tumors, 7 out of 60 cases were benign tumors and 6 samples of normal breast tissue as control. The malignant cases were graded according to the modified Bloom and Richardson criteria into three histological grades. We used immunohistochemistry to evaluate the expression BRAF in relation to histopathological factors. Statistical Analysis Statistical analysis was done by using T-test and Chi-square test to calculate p-value to ascertain statistical significance. Results In 47 breast cancer sections, 31 (65.96 %) of cases showed positivity for BRAF specific antibody, while only 2 (28.57 %) of 7 benign cases showed positive expression when stained with this marker in comparison with 6 (100 %) normal breast tissue samples were showed totally negative expression of BRAF Results reported high significant correlation between BRAF expression with (age and tumor stages) but insignificant with tumor grades. Conclusion These results revealed the presence of BRAF mutation in a proportion of breast cancer, and BRAF mutations showed association with some clinicopathological factors.