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Research about Renal Cell Carcinoma in Young Adults Published

A new study led by Rohit Mehra, MD, from the Department of Pathology was just published in Histopathology. The research, which focuses on identifying and characterizing renal cell carcinoma in young adults, was authored by a team of experts from the University of Michigan.

First authored by Eman Abdulfatah, MD, and with collaborators and co-authors from the Departments of Pathology and Urology and Michigan Center for Translational Pathology (MCTP), the study examines the spectrum of renal cell carcinomas in children and young adults.

While well characterized in older adults, the morphological and molecular characterization of these tumors in young patients is relatively lacking. The overall objective of this study was to explore the spectrum of renal cell carcinoma subtypes in children and young adults in light of the 2016 WHO classification criteria.

"We investigated 68 patients with confirmed diagnosis of renal cell carcinoma at 30 years of age or younger," notes. Dr. Eman Abdulfatah. "We found that clear cell renal cell carcinoma accounted for the most common subtype seen in this age group."

Ultimately, the results suggest that renal cell carcinoma in children and young adults is a relatively rare disease that shares many histological similarities to renal cell carcinoma occurring in adults and yet demonstrates some unique clinical-pathological differences. Microphthalmia‐associated transcription (MiT) family translocation RCC and rare familial syndrome subtypes are relatively more frequent in the pediatric and adolescent age groups than in adults. Clear cell RCC still accounted for the most common subtype seen in this age group. MiT family translocation RCC patients presented with advanced-stage disease and had poor clinical outcomes. The large and heterogeneous subgroup of unclassified renal cell carcinoma contains phenotypically distinct tumors with further potential for future subcategories in the renal cell carcinoma classification. 

Dr. Mehra comments, "despite applying the new WHO 2016 diagnostic criteria, we found a significant number of RCC, type unclassified, that comprise phenotypically distinct tumors, which carries the potential for future subcategorization including molecular investigation and biomarker discovery.”

The full interview with Dr. Mehra in Empire Genomics is accessible here. The full publication in Histopathology is accessible here.