Improving our understanding of papillary renal cell carcinoma with integrative genomic analysis.

Papillary renal cell carcinoma (pRCC) is a heterogeneous and incompletely understood histologic subtype of kidney cancer. Recently, authors from The Cancer Genome Atlas Research Network performed a comprehensive molecular characterization of pRCC. Using multiple analytic methods, they identified 4 subgroups of pRCC with varied genotypic anomalies and probabilities of overall survival. This analysis elucidated the differences between type 1 and type 2 pRCC. Furthermore, type 2 pRCC was found to be heterogeneous itself, with at least 3 subtypes with distinct molecular features. This improved characterization and insight about potential driver mutations and altered pathways may lead to the development of more targeted agents and better patient stratification in clinical trials for pRCC.