Upper tract urothelial cancer (UTUC) are rare subsets of urothelial cancer, which typically present with more aggressive course. Molecular markers stratifying urothelial tumors as luminal subtype and non-luminal subtype tumors have been proposed to select patients who may have greater or lesser benefit from neoadjuvant systemic therapy in bladder cancer, though not yet evaluated in UTUC. Here, a single-institution study retrospectively obtained clinical and genomic information in patients with UTUC and evaluated four patient tumors using the Decipher Bladder® assay and Foundation Medicine® test. All four patients had non-luminal molecular subtype including basal (N = 4) and mixed basal/claudin-low (N = 2) subtypes. The best clinical response achieved was stable disease in a patient who had basal/claudin-low subtype with residual ypT3 after neoadjuvant chemotherapy. For the remaining three patients, all were treated with platinum-based chemotherapy for eventual metastatic disease but all three showed progressive disease with limited overall survival, highlighting their aggressive course. The non-luminal subtype and lack of FGFR alteration may partly explain the poor overall outcomes while the real-world benefit of next generation sequencing for clinical use in UTUC patients require further clarification in a larger cohort study.
Exploration of targeted anti-tumor therapy. 2024 Oct 17 [Epub]
Min Woo Hwang, Jasmine Kauffeld, Sarah Belay, Joep J de Jong, Elai Davicioni, Wenping Li, Jeanny B Aragon-Ching
Department of Internal Medicine, Inova Fairfax Hospital, Fairfax, VA 22031, USA., Masters of Public Health Program, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA 22903, USA., School of Medicine, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA 22903, USA., Department of Urology, Erasmus University Medical Center, 3015GD Rotterdam, The Netherlands., Veracyte Inc, Decipher Biosciences, San Diego, CA 92121, USA., Department of Pathology, Inova Fairfax Hospital, Fairfax, VA 22031, USA., GU Medical Oncology, Inova Schar Cancer Institute, Fairfax, VA 22031, USA.