Gene expression profiling of renal cell carcinoma and its implications in diagnosis, prognosis, and therapeutics.

Renal cell carcinoma (RCC) is the 10th most common cancer in the United States. It is a histologically heterogeneous disease with various histologic types being characterized by distinct genetic alterations. This chapter reviews advances in the gene expression profiling of RCC and discusses their clinical implications. Data are promising, and many more RCC-related microarray studies are currently underway or in planning. Undoubtedly these data will have an impact on the diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment of RCCs in the future. Finally, this chapter discusses what additional studies should be performed to help uncover the molecular mechanisms of RCC and to bring this new knowledge into use in the clinical arena.