Hot Topics and New Frontiers in Kidney Cancer

Dear colleagues,

Kidney cancer is the most lethal cancer of the urinary tract, with an annual incidence of >300,000 new cases and >140,000 deaths worldwide. Despite the progress of research in this field during the last several decades, there are still several unmet clinical needs in both the diagnosis and treatment of kidney cancer, making this a topic of increasing interest from both clinical and research perspectives.

Specific unmet clinical needs and hot topics in the field of kidney cancer include:

1. The diagnosis/screening of renal cell carcinoma by means of non-invasive liquid biomarkers and/or innovative imaging modality, including radiomics and machine-learning algorithms;
2. The use of artificial intelligence (AI) and Big Data to enhance the quality of clinical and basic research on kidney cancer, enabling robust analyses on the pan-omics landscape of RCC;
3. The pattern of care of kidney cancer across institutions and countries, focusing on the selection of candidates for non-surgical management, type of surgery (partial vs. radical nephrectomy), the use of minimally invasive surgery (especially for advanced kidney cancer), and quality indicators of kidney cancer care;
4. The impact of technological advancements such as 3D models and extended-reality applications on preoperative surgical strategy and intra/postoperative outcomes in kidney cancer surgery;
5. The refinement of the decision-making process in patients with small renal masses through the integration of biomarkers, imaging, and renal biopsy into structured algorithms aiming to select the best candidates for active surveillance, ablative therapies, and surgery (partial or radical nephrectomy);
6. The impact of telemedicine on kidney cancer services worldwide, in light of the recent effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on genito-urinary cancer care;
7. The effect of the centralization of kidney cancer management at high-volume referral centers on postoperative outcomes and quality indicators;
8. The definition of tailored treatment strategies in patients with newly diagnosed oligometastatic kidney cancer within a multidisciplinary kidney cancer service, including patient selection for cytoreductive nephrectomy;
9. The benefits and limitations of current prognostic models in the setting of metastatic kidney cancer in the immune-oncology (IO) era;
10. The definition of the best risk-adjusted treatment strategy in patients with newly diagnosed metastatic kidney cancer, including the selection of IO drugs and treatment sequences tailored to patients’ specific clinical characteristics, following the “precision medicine” paradigm.

In this increasingly dynamic scenario, JCM is proud to edit a Special Issue specifically aimed at providing an updated overview of the most compelling unmet needs, hot topics, and new frontiers in kidney cancer diagnosis and treatment.

We therefore invite investigators involved in kidney cancer to submit original research articles and systematic literature reviews on these topics. It is our hope to make this Special Issue a point of reference for researchers and clinicians worldwide. We extend our thanks to all of you in advance and look forward to receiving your contributions.

Dr. Riccardo Campi
On behalf of the EAU Young Academic Urologists (YAU) Renal Cancer working group
Dr. Umberto Capitanio
On behalf of the EAU Young Academic Urologists (YAU) Renal Cancer working group
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-anonymized peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Journal of Clinical Medicine is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.