Time matters: circadian genetics and the molecular logic of human health and disease - Nature

News|Articles|October 19, 2026 In patients 45+ with papillary thyroid cancer, men with dual BRAF V600E and TERT promoter mutations face sharply higher mortality, reshaping risk stratification. Male sex was associated with higher papillary thyroid cancer (PTC)-specific mortality among patients aged 45 years or older whose tumors harbored concurrent BRAF V600E and TERT promoter (TERTp) mutations, according to an international multicenter cohort study published in JAMA Network Open.1Among patients aged 45 years or older with both mutations, male sex was associated with a 3-fold higher risk of PTC-specific mortality after adjustment for clinicopathologic factors (adjusted HR, 3.07; 95% CI, 1.35-6.97; P =.007). This group also had the highest observed mortality rate, at 37.07 deaths per 1000 person-years, highlighting the prognostic relevance of evaluating these biological factors together. Study Design and Patient CharacteristicsThe retrospective cohort study included 4746 patients with PTC treated at 15 medical centers across 10 countries between 1979 and 2023. The median patient age was 48 years (IQR, 37-59), and 3612 patients (76.1%) were women.