Unlocking the Secrets of Metastatic Kidney Cancer Leveraging AI

According to the National Cancer Institute, renal cell carcinoma (RCC) in the kidney is one of the most common cancers in the United States, affecting nearly 80,000 people each year. One third of those cancers spread to other parts of the body, making treatment more complicated because each new tumor has unique genomic changes and tumor microenvironments that can affect how that it responds to therapy.

In the July 15, 2024 issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, researchers from Caris and the Caris Precision Oncology Alliance? used AI tools to analyze the characteristics of metastatic RCCs that had spread to different parts of the body. Their findings have important implications for using immunotherapy and inhibitors against angiogenesis and mTOR, helping doctors choose the best treatment based on the tumors’ genomics and biology. For example:

• Brain and spinal metastases have gene expression profiles that suggest increased potential for response to immunotherapy.
• Liver metastases were enriched with PTEN gene mutations that may increase responsiveness to mTOR inhibitors (e.g. everolimus and temsirolimus) and have a potential link to resistance to antiangiogenic agents (e.g. sunitinib and sorafenib), highlighting the potential for combination treatment strategies for patients with liver metastases. ?
• Increased frequency of TP53?mutations in bone and brain lesions may explain why these metastases are associated with worse clinical outcomes.?????

This type of research, which combines real-world tissue samples with AI-based analysis of each tumor and its microenvironment, is rapidly advancing treatment plans, improving patient quality of life and extending cancer-free survival. ?

See full article and other findings at: https://www.jci.org/articles/view/176230

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Caris Life Sciences Contributors:

Daniel Magee , PhD, Vice President, Bioinformatics

Andrew Elliott, Ph.D. , Director, Clinical and Translational Research/Medical Affairs