Diagnostic and prognostic potential of circulating cell-free genomic and mitochondrial DNA fragments in clear cell renal cell carcinoma patients.

Background: There is inconsistent information about the clinical usefulness of circulating cell-free DNA (cfDNA) in plasma from clear cell renal cell cancer (RCC) patients. This is attributed to preanalytical, analytical, and clinical factors that were considered as far as possible in this study.

Methods: cfDNA was extracted from EDTA plasma of healthy people (n=40), non-metastatic (n=145) and metastatic (n=84) RCC patients using the QIAamp Circulating Nucleic Acid Kit. Genomic and mitochondrial cfDNA concentrations were determined using qPCR of different cfDNA fragments (67-306bp). Their diagnostic and prognostic potential was estimated using receiver operating characteristics (ROC) and Cox regression analyses.

Results: The 67bp and 180bp genomic cfDNA fragments did not differ between the three study groups while the 306bp fragment was lower in RCC patients than in controls. The mitochondrial cfDNA was higher in metastatic than in non-metastatic patients and controls. The cfDNA integrity indices decreased from controls to metastatic patients. Models built by logistic regression and Cox regression resulted in area under the ROC curves >0.75 and concordance indices of >0.800 in predicting recurrence-free survival and overall survival.

Conclusion: The study suggests that combinations of cfDNA markers have promising diagnostic and prognostic potential in RCC patients and are worth for further validation in future prospective multicenter studies.