Research Awards Recipients

Lay Summary

Incidence rates for kidney cancer are rising worldwide. Clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC) is the most common form of kidney cancer accounting for about 80% of all cases. Most patients undergo surgical removal of the kidney or tumor but a third of these patients develop relapse or metastasis, which is life-threatening. However, it remains difficult to predict risk of relapse or metastasis post-surgery among ccRCC patients. Thus, there is an urgent need to identify factors that can reliably predict risk of relapse/metastasis to establish personalized and effective management strategies for ccRCC. 

Dr. Riazalhosseini and others have shown that gene mutations in ccRCC tumors may be used to estimate the risk of relapse in patients and that certain gene mutations may be predictive of metastasis in female patients only while other gene mutations are specific to male patients. Further, his team has shown that cell-free tumor DNA (ctDNA) released by tumor cells can be identified in biofluids (blood or urine) offering unique opportunities for non-invasive genetic tests through liquid biopsy screening in ccRCC.

The objectives of this study are therefore to develop a sex-appropriate, robust, non-invasive assay that will allow for sensitive and specific detection of tumor mutations in the blood or urine of kidney cancer patients (liquid biopsy). 

There is a growing population of patients, suffering from metastatic kidney cancer and long-term side effects of treatment. The emotional/economic burdens on patients, families and society are significant. Identifying and implementing prognostic genetic markers in clinical practice will help clinicians improve health-care delivery to patients based on individualized risk assessment on the basis of patient's sex. Outcomes of this study have the potential to significantly impact patient management, allowing accurate risk stratification for recurrence/progression, timely identification of patients with failure, better adapted follow up regimens, and potentially better selection of candidates for adjuvant treatments.