A preliminary investigation of the association between KRAS, NRAS, and BRAF mutations and colorectal cancer in Turkish patients.

Somatic mutations in the GTPase RAS protein family and the downstream serine-threonine kinase BRAF are predicted to be key driver muta-tions in colorectal carcinogenesis by disrupting critical control points in cell cycle regulation. In our study, we aimed to investigate the relationship between KRAS, NRAS, and BRAF mutations in colorectal cancer (CRC) samples and cor-responding clinicopathological data. This retrospective study included 64 CRC patients who were evaluated for KRAS, NRAS, and BRAF mutations in our de-partment between 2022 and 2024. The findings were evaluated according to the age, gender, tumor localization in the colon, and histopathological subtype of the patients in whom the mutation was detected, and the relationships be-tween these variables were analyzed using the chi-square test. KRAS mutations were detected at 29.6%, NRAS mutations at 3.1% and BRAF mutations at 1.6%. No significant relationship was found between mutation rates and the patients’ age, gender and colon localization. Our study demonstrated that mutations in KRAS, NRAS, and BRAF were not associated with the age, sex, and tumor loca-tion of CRC patients. The data presented are preliminary findings, and more research is needed to evaluate the clinical and pathological impact of these mutations on colorectal cancer progression and outcomes.