Genitourinary Cancers

Patients with non-urothelial bladder cancer are more commonly upstaged during surgery compared with urothelial cancers.

A new class of agents known as hypoxia-inducible factors-2 inhibitors may be more effective and better tolerated than sunitinib (Sutent), the current standard of care, in patients with renal cell carcinoma.

Investigators think they may have found a strong predictor of which men with prostate cancer will develop resistance to androgen deprivation therapy.

PSA failure in men with localized, intermediate- or high-risk prostate cancer was associated with increased all-cause mortality in only those patients with no or minimal comorbidity.

Patients with RCC who underwent simultaneous nephrectomy and hepatic resection had similar postoperative mortality, long-term survival, and cancer-specific survival as those patients who underwent metastasectomy or en bloc resection of neighboring non-hepatic organs.

A model based on a series of PSA tests can predict the time to relapse in prostate cancer patients who underwent radical prostatectomy, according to a new study.

Despite treatment advances for renal cell carcinoma, biomarkers are urgently needed for earlier diagnosis and treatment, and quicker assessment of treatment efficacy. Development of such tools has lagged behind biomarker research for more common cancers, and despite encouraging findings from several newly published preclinical studies.

Although the overall incidence of programmed cell death 1 (PD-1) inhibitor-related pneumonitis is rare, the serious adverse event may occur more commonly in certain solid tumor types like non–small-cell lung cancer and renal cell carcinoma.

The incidence of early-stage prostate cancer in men 50 years and older continued a decline reported earlier, with lower rates in 2013 compared to 2012. This is a likely result of the October 2011 recommendation from the USPSTF against routine PSA testing in all men.

Patients with kidney cancer who are considered to be in poor functional health were less likely to receive cancer-directed surgery to treat their disease.

Noncoding RNA appears to be involved in the epigenetic regulation of prostate cancer, according to findings published in Nature Genetics.

Mapping the interactions of metastatic prostate tumor gene expression and protein phosphorylation can yield detailed, patient-specific signalling pathway diagrams, and help to identify “master-switch” tumor progression-driving targets for personalized treatment.

Androgen-deprivation therapy (ADT) is associated with shortened survival in African American men with favorable-risk prostate cancer, according to a new study. The results suggest ADT should be reserved for men with higher risk disease.

A small genomic study of patients with chemoradiation-treated urothelial carcinoma of the bladder found similar mutation patterns between primary and recurrent tumors.

The NCI is granting the University of Texas (UT) Southwestern Medical Center the Specialized Program of Research Excellence (SPORE) award worth $11 million to help advance new treatments.

Studies have demonstrated that renal cell carcinoma (RCC) positive for PD-L1 is more likely to respond to PD-1 pathway blockers compared to those patients who are negative for PD-L1.

Undergoing complete metastasectomy for metastatic renal cell carcinoma was associated with improved survival outcomes, according to the results of a meta-analysis.

A novel urine-based DNA test was effective at detecting bladder cancer, and in particular at identifying patients with gross hematuria who do not require cystoscopy.

Certain patients with metastatic renal cell carcinoma safely underwent active surveillance of their disease prior to undergoing systemic therapy.

Outcomes after salvage radiotherapy are affected by variables related to prostatectomy for men with prostate cancer, but its use at lower PSA levels may improve outcomes.

Patients with RCC had greater postsurgical decreases in kidney function compared with patients with upper tract urothelial carcinoma.

New NCCN guidelines regarding genomic profiling will likely yield important opportunities to improve the care of patients with advanced bladder cancer.

A new study has found a series of potential microRNA biomarkers that could predict tyrosine kinase inhibitor response in RCC patients.

In this paper, we review the use of serum tumor markers in risk assignment and response evaluation; the treatment of previously untreated and relapsing patients; the role of surgical resection of residual disease, including retroperitoneal node dissection; and the importance of clinical trials for addressing unanswered questions and testing new therapies.

Metastatic prostate cancer is more strongly associated than localized disease with germline mutations in DNA repair genes like BRCA1 and BRCA2.