Italian 
English Current trends and future directions of liquid biopsy in renal cell carcinoma
AUTORI
Department of Translational Medical Sciences, University of Naples “Federico II”
ABSTRACT
Current trends and future directions of liquid biopsy in renal cell carcinoma
Metastatic clear cell renal cell carcinoma is a high vascularized and aggressive tumor characterized by a high intra-tumoral and inter-tumoral heterogeneity. For this reason, despite the wide range of therapy available, these patients often show resistance to chemotherapy. In this scenario, it could be of great benefit the discovery of biomarkers to identify the most suitable treatment for first and second line therapy and the early determination of outcome. Once identified, circulating biomarkers could be introduced in clinical practice and integrated with patient’s clinical features for building a decision algorithm usable by clinicians. The liquid biopsy, defined as the determination in fluids like blood of tumor-released product such as DNA, RNA and protein, exhibits several advantages over tissue biomarkers including a real time correlation with tumor features, lower cost and lower risk for the patient. Our understanding of the liquid biopsy has raised rapidly in the last few years accordingly with the development of new molecular biology techniques. Efforts are under way for the identification of robust and reproducible liquid biopsy assays that could improve soon overall survival (OS) and quality of life of metastatic renal cell carcinoma.