Frontiers in Oncology (Apr 2021)

Review of Prognostic Expression Markers for Clear Cell Renal Cell Carcinoma

  • Florent Petitprez,
  • Mira Ayadi,
  • Aurélien de Reyniès,
  • Wolf H. Fridman,
  • Catherine Sautès-Fridman,
  • Sylvie Job

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3389/fonc.2021.643065
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 11

Abstract

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Context: The number of prognostic markers for clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC) has been increasing regularly over the last 15 years, without being integrated and compared.Objective: Our goal was to perform a review of prognostic markers for ccRCC to lay the ground for their use in the clinics.Evidence Acquisition: PubMed database was searched to identify RNA and protein markers whose expression level was reported as associated with survival of ccRCC patients. Relevant studies were selected through cross-reading by two readers.Evidence Synthesis: We selected 249 studies reporting an association with prognostic of either single markers or multiple-marker models. Altogether, these studies were based on a total of 341 distinct markers and 13 multiple-marker models. Twenty percent of these markers were involved in four biological pathways altered in ccRCC: cell cycle, angiogenesis, hypoxia, and immune response. The main genes (VHL, PBRM1, BAP1, and SETD2) involved in ccRCC carcinogenesis are not the most relevant for assessing survival.Conclusion: Among single markers, the most validated markers were KI67, BIRC5, TP53, CXCR4, and CA9. Of the multiple-marker models, the most famous model, ClearCode34, has been highly validated on several independent datasets, but its clinical utility has not yet been investigated.Patient Summary: Over the years, the prognosis studies have evolved from single markers to multiple-marker models. Our review highlights the highly validated prognostic markers and multiple-marker models and discusses their clinical utility for better therapeutic care.

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