CASE REPORT article
Front. Oncol.
Sec. Genitourinary Oncology
This article is part of the Research TopicKidney Cancer Awareness Month 2025: Current Progress and Future Prospects on Kidney Cancer Prevention, Diagnosis and TreatmentView all 18 articles
Novel molecular characterization of rare primary mucinous adenocarcinoma of the renal pelvis
Provisionally accepted
Megan Kathleen Taylor1*
Irasema Concepcion Paster2Dory Esther Aravelo Salazar2Juan Chipollini2Alejandro Recio Boiles2- 1University of Washington, Seattle, United States
- 2The University of Arizona, Tucson, United States
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Mucinous adenocarcinoma of the renal pelvis (MAC-RP) is an exceedingly rare condition, accounting for less than 1% of malignancies originating from this epithelial site. We report a case of MAC-RP in a woman presenting with right flank pain from obstructing stones, recurrent urinary tract infections, and ureteral stents. Imaging showed a right kidney mass consistent with xanthogranulomatous pyelonephritis (XGP) with an abscess surgically removed. Pathology after radical nephrectomy unexpectedly revealed in-situ MAC-RP with intestinal metaplasia at the margin. Surveillance testing showed positive levels of CEA, CA19-9, and novel ctDNA and cfDNA, despite negative results from pan-endoscopy and imaging. A subsequent monitoring imaging identified a right flank mass that was resected, confirming recurrent MAC-RP. The patient completed 6 months of adjuvant mFOLFOX6, as recommended in the MAC-colon cancer guidelines. The patient completed the treatment without any evidence of measurable molecular or radiological disease. Four months after the last systemic therapy, the patient's biomarkers were rising, matching radiological local, ovarian, and pleural recurrences, which were histologically confirmed. Since there are no established guidelines for MAC-RP, our team is the first to apply cutting-edge cancer technologies to inform future clinical decisions and molecular tumor board discussions, and to compare the genomic distance of MAC-RP with that of other bladder or colorectal origin sites.
Keywords: biomarker, case report, Genomic, Kidney cancer, Mucinous
Received: 03 Aug 2025; Accepted: 18 Dec 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Taylor, Paster, Aravelo Salazar, Chipollini and Recio Boiles. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Megan Kathleen Taylor
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