BRAF mutations among patients from the Northeast of México with malignant melanoma.

After appropriate pathologic confirmation of the diagnosis of melanoma of every sample, tumor samples were tested for BRAF V600E using a kit based on the PCR/hybridization method. DNA extraction was performed using the QIAamp DNA FFPE Tissue kit (Qiagen) following the manufacturer’s instructions. The BRAF mutation was detected using the ViennaLab BRAF StripAssay® kit (ViennaLab Diagnostics GmbH, Vienna, Austria) according to the manufacturer’s instructions. For the purpose of this study, the mutation of BRAF V600 was considered positive if it was found in the PCR analysis. Determination of the BRAF V600 mutation was considered a dependent variable. MINITAB 16 and Microsoft Excel 2007 were used to analyze the diffe-