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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Med.
Sec. Pathology
Volume 11 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fmed.2024.1433120
This article is part of the Research Topic Global Excellence in Pathology: Africa – Volume II View all 6 articles

Frequency of KRAS and BRAF mutations in colorectal carcinoma and their association with clinical-pathological characteristics in a tertiary hospital in Kenya

Provisionally accepted
Samuel Gakinya Samuel Gakinya 1*Allan Njau Allan Njau 1Abdulkarim Abdallah Abdulkarim Abdallah 1Ancent Nzioka Ancent Nzioka 2James Ogutu James Ogutu 3*
  • 1 Aga Khan University (Kenya), Nairobi, Kenya
  • 2 Kenyatta University Teaching, Referral & Research Hospital, Nairobi, Kenya
  • 3 School of Medicine, Kenyatta University, Nairobi, Kenya

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Introduction Colorectal carcinoma is a leading cause of cancer morbidity and mortality globally. Its management includes the use of targeted therapy which require assessment for biomarkers to choose eligible patients. KRAS and BRAF mutations are biomarkers predictive of response to anti-EGFR therapy. This study aimed at determining the frequency of BRAF V600E and KRAS exon 2,3,4 mutations in colorectal carcinoma patients at the Aga Khan University Hospital Nairobi, Kenya. Methods Study participants were patients who had colectomy for colorectal carcinoma. They were identified from the laboratory information system. The patients age, gender and tumor location were determined from the medical records. The histological diagnosis, pathological tumor and nodal stage were confirmed by examining hematoxylin and eosin-stained slides prepared from the colectomy specimen. DNA was extracted from the specimens using Qiagen QIAamp DNA FFPE Tissue Kit and PCR performed using EntroGen KRAS/BRAF mutation analysis kit following manufacturer’s protocol. Results 114 patients were enrolled. Colorectal carcinoma was significantly more common in males than females. The mean age at diagnosis was 58 years. Majority of the tumors were in the right colon, were of pathological tumor stage T3 and had nodal involvement. Forty six percent (46%) of the cases had KRAS mutations while 5.3% had BRAF V600E mutation. KRAS mutation was associated with a high pathological tumor stage and nodal involvement. Conclusion Colorectal carcinoma in our patients is more common in males and tend to occur at a younger age. The patients tend to have a high tumor pathological stage and nodal involvement at diagnosis. The high frequency of KRAS exon 2,3,4 mutation and low frequency of BRAF V600E mutations is similar to what has been reported in literature.

    Keywords: KRAS, BRAF V600E, colorectal carcinoma, Kenya, Africa

    Received: 15 May 2024; Accepted: 02 Sep 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Gakinya, Njau, Abdallah, Nzioka and Ogutu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence:
    Samuel Gakinya, Aga Khan University (Kenya), Nairobi, Kenya
    James Ogutu, School of Medicine, Kenyatta University, Nairobi, Kenya

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