In recent years, BRAF V600E mutation has emerged as a promising prognostic marker for risk stratification of patients with papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC). However, routine use of this marker has been questioned. In some parts of the world, particularly in Korea, the incidence of BRAF V600E mutation is too high to have true prognostic value. The relatively low number of tumors without BRAF V600E mutation would prejudice the efficient use of this marker in the Korean population.The study involved 107 patients with histologically confirmed conventional PTC after surgical management for thyroid cancer from April 2010 to December 2010. BRAF V600E mutation analysis was performed by polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-based amplification of DNA extracted from paraffin-embedded tumor specimens, and the relationship between BRAF V600E mutation and various prognostic factors was investigated.BRAF V600E mutation was found to be present in 85 (79.4%) of 107 patients with conventional PTC. Analysis of the clinical characteristics as function of the presence or absence of BRAF V600E mutation revealed no differences between the BRAF V600E -positive and BRAF V600E -negative patients. Moreover, BRAF V600E mutation was not correlated with any of the prognostic factors including age ≥45 years, male gender, tumor size ≥1cm, multifocality, extra-thyroidal extension, concurrent Hashimoto's thyroiditis, and lymph node metastasis neither in the univariate nor in the multivariate analysis.BRAF V600E mutation does not significantly reflect tumor aggressiveness in Korean patients with conventional PTC. We consider that BRAF V600E mutation does not possess prognostic value in Korea, where it is prevalent, and where most of the PTC types are conventional.