Clear-cell renal cell carcinomaWIKIMEDIA, NEPHRON
A type of kidney tumor can progress along one of three distinct evolutionary pathways, each with different clinical outcomes, according to research presented Sunday (April 15) at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) meeting in Chicago. The researchers also reported their findings last week (April 12) in Cell.
Charles Swanton, a cancer geneticist at the Francis Crick Institute in London, and colleagues analyzed 1,206 clear-cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC) tumor samples from 101 patients as part of the Tracking Cancer Evolution through therapy (TRACERx) program. The team found that ccRCC tumors fall into different evolutionary subtypes that are associated with distinct clinical phenotypes.
“In evolutionary biology, there’s been this conflict for quite some time between the punctuated evolutionists and the Darwinian evolutionists,” Swanton tells ...