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. 2019 Jan 17;8(1):111.
doi: 10.3390/jcm8010111.

Colorectal Cancer Prognosis is Not Associated with BRAF and KRAS Mutations-A STROBE Compliant Study

Joon-Hyop Lee  1 , Jiyoung Ahn  2 , Won Seo Park  3 , Eun Kyung Choe  4 , Eunyoung Kim  5 , Rumi Shin  6 , Seung Chul Heo  7 , Sohee Jung  8 , Kwangsoo Kim  9 , Young Jun Chai  10 , Heejoon Chae  11
Affiliations

Colorectal Cancer Prognosis is Not Associated with BRAF and KRAS Mutations-A STROBE Compliant Study

Joon-Hyop Lee et al. J Clin Med. .

Abstract

Background: We investigated the associations between v-Raf murine sarcoma viral oncogene homolog B1 (BRAFV600E, henceforth BRAF) and v-Ki-ras2 Kirsten rat sarcoma viral oncogene homolog (KRAS) mutations and colorectal cancer (CRC) prognosis, using The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and the Gene Expression Omnibus (GSE39582) datasets.

Materials and methods: The effects of BRAF and KRAS mutations on overall survival (OS) and disease-free survival (DFS) of CRC were evaluated.

Results: The mutational status of BRAF and KRAS genes was not associated with overall survival (OS) or DFS of the CRC patients drawn from the TCGA database. The 3-year OS and DFS rates of the BRAF mutation (+) vs. mutation (-) groups were 92.6% vs. 90.4% and 79.7% vs. 68.4%, respectively. The 3-year OS and DFS rates of the KRAS mutation (+) vs. mutation (-) groups were 90.4% vs. 90.5% and 65.3% vs. 73.5%, respectively. In stage II patients, however, the 3-year OS rate was lower in the BRAF mutation (+) group than in the mutation (-) group (85.5% vs. 97.7%, p <0.001). The mutational status of BRAF genes of 497 CRC patients drawn from the GSE39582 database was not associated with OS or DFS. The 3-year OS and DFS rates of BRAF mutation (+) vs. mutation (-) groups were 75.7% vs. 78.9% and 73.6% vs. 71.1%, respectively. However, KRAS mutational status had an effect on 3-year OS rate (71.9% mutation (+) vs. 83% mutation (-), p = 0.05) and DFS rate (66.3% mutation (+) vs. 74.6% mutation (-), p = 0.013).

Conclusions: We found no consistent association between the mutational status of BRAF nor KRAS and the OS and DFS of CRC patients from the TCGA and GSE39582 databases. Studies with longer-term records and larger patient numbers may be necessary to expound the influence of BRAF and KRAS mutations on the outcomes of CRC.

Keywords: BRAF; KRAS; colorectal cancer; disease-free survival; overall survival.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Effect of BRAF mutation on (a) 3-year overall survival and (b) 3-year disease-free survival from the The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database and on (c) 3-year overall survival and (d) 3-year disease-free survival from the Gene Expression Omnibus (GSE39582) database of colorectal cancer patients of all stages.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Effect of BRAF mutation on (a) 3-year overall survival and (b) 3-year disease-free survival from the The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database of colorectal cancer stage II patients.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Effect of BRAF mutation on (a) 3-year overall survival and (b) 3-year disease-free survival from the GSE39582 database of colorectal cancer stage III patients.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Effect of KRAS mutation on (a) 3-year overall survival and (b) 3-year disease-free survival from the The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database and on (c) 3-year overall survival and (d) 3-year disease-free survival from the GSE39582 database of colorectal cancer patients of all stages.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Effect of KRAS mutation on (a) 3-year overall survival and (b) 3-year disease-free survival from the GSE39582 database of colorectal cancer stage III patients.
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