A recent study published on PLOS/ONE has identified three genetic mutations/alterations that are strongly predictive of progression-free survival in patients receiving first-line treatment with a vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) inhibitor for metastatic kidney cancer. The genes involved are TP53, wild type VHL and variants of FLT1C/C.

Kidney cancer patients who did not have a mutation/alteration in the VHL gene had poorer progression-free survival on first-line VEGF therapy, while patients with mutations/alterations in the TP53 gene and FLT1 C/C variants also had poorer progression-free survival.

Further studies are needed to validate these results.

Read more in PLOS/ONE here