Evaluation of Clear Cell, Papillary, and Chromophobe Renal Cell Carcinoma Metastasis Sites and Association With Survival

Abstract

Renal cell carcinomas (RCC) comprise a heterogeneous group of malignant neoplasms arising from the nephron. With more than a dozen recognized histologic variants of renal cell tumors,¹ RCCs may vary widely in their genetic, pathologic, and clinical characteristics. The 3 most common histologic variants of RCC include clear cell RCC (ccRCC), papillary RCC (pRCC), and chromophobe RCC (chrRCC), representing 75% to 85%, 10% to 15% and 5% to 10% of all kidney cancers, respectively.^2,3 Comprehensive molecular and genetic analyses conducted through The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) program have demonstrated that these subtypes of RCC are biologically distinct.^4-6 Expectedly, the clinical behavior of RCC subtypes is similarly heterogeneous, which is likely a result of the differences in underlying disease biology between histologic variants.^7-11