Molecular Characterization of Clear Cell Renal Cell Carcinoma Reveals Prognostic Significance of Epithelial-mesenchymal Transition Gene Expression Signature.

Background: There is an ongoing need to develop prognostic biomarkers to improve the management of clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC).

Objective: To leverage enriched pathways in ccRCC to improve risk-stratification.

Design, Setting, And Participants: We retrospectively identified two complementary discovery cohorts of patients with ccRCC who underwent (1) radical nephrectomy (RNx) with inferior vena cava tumor thrombectomy (patients = 5, samples = 24) and (2) RNx for localized disease and developed recurrence versus no recurrence (n = 36).