Prognostic Factors in Kidney Cancer and New TNM Classification

Staging systems are widely used in cancer treatment for classifying patients into groups that have different risks of disease progression and death. This information is the basis for planning appropriate treatment strategies. The staging system most often used in patients with renal cell cancer (RCC) is the tumour-node-metastasis (TNM) staging system, which is based on data from large multicentre studies with a good level of evidence. Despite continual revisions to integrate results from new clinical studies, use of the TNM system remains controversial. Current research helps to understand the genetic and protein expression profiles of the different histological subtypes of RCC. These biomarkers will enhance the ability to predict an individual behaviour of a tumour and to stratify patients into a more sophisticated staging system. # 2008 European Association of Urology. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.