Post-diagnosis changes in body composition and renal cell cancer survival

The National Cancer Institute awarded The Regents of the University of California, doing business as University of California, Berkeley, $411,705 on June 10, 2026, under the Cancer Detection and Diagnosis Research program (CFDA 93.394) to conduct research on post-diagnosis body composition changes and their relationship to survival outcomes in clear cell renal cell carcinoma (CCRCC) patients.

The research will examine how changes in weight and body composition after CCRCC diagnosis relate to patient survival and tumor characteristics, including molecular features. The study leverages data from the RESOLVE cohort, a National Cancer Institute-funded retrospective cohort of 1,239 stage I–III CCRCC patients diagnosed between 2000 and 2020 at Memorial Sloan Kettering. The work employs joint modeling approaches to simultaneously model post-diagnosis trajectories of weight and body composition and their relationships with cancer outcomes. Findings are intended to inform clinical management of CCRCC patients and identify modifiable body composition features to improve survival.

The period of performance runs from June 10, 2026, through May 31, 2028. Work is performed in Berkeley, California. The funding mechanism is a Project Grant, classified as assistance funding under the Cancer Detection and Diagnosis Research program, which supports diagnostic techniques and methods for predicting disease course in cancer patients.

Abstract

Significance. Clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccrcc) is the most common form of kidney cancer and most lethal subtype, and there is great interest in the identification of potentially modifiable prognostic factors. Although weight status seems to be relevant, the relationship between body mass index (BMI) at diagnosis and survival among ccrcc patients indicates that mortality is lowest among those classified as overweight or obese at the time of diagnosis by BMI. This has resulted in confusion in clinical guidance for weight management among ccrcc patients. Recent work involving body composition features (adipose and muscle tissue) has provided some insight, but we do not understand how weight or body composition changes after diagnosis relate to survival, nor how these changes relate to pathological and molecular tumor features- information which is needed to resolve this controversy. Rigorous analytical approaches are further required to accurately address these questions. Innovation. Our study is highly innovative in that 1) we will be the first to leverage a large-scale cohort of ccrcc patients with multiple assessments of weight and body composition from diagnosis onward; 2) we will examine tumor characteristics, including molecular features, as potential drivers of these changes; and 3) we will use a rigorous joint modeling approach to simultaneously model the post-diagnosis trajectories of weight and body composition and their relationships with cancer outcomes in the most statistically sound manner. Our findings will inform clinical management of, and identify modifiable body composition features to improve survival for the growing number of ccrcc patients. Approach. We will use available data from the resolve cohort, an NCI-funded retrospective cohort of 1,239 stage i-III clear-cell renal cell carcinoma (ccrcc) patients diagnosed between 2000-2020 at memorial sloan kettering cancer center. These data include clinical and patient-level factors collected from the medical record, including repeated height and weight assessments, body composition measures from existing computed tomography scans, pathological and molecular tumor characteristics, and overall survival (OS) and disease-free survival (DFS). We will use a joint modeling approach to simultaneously model changes in post-diagnosis body weight (aim 1) and OS and DFS, as well as post-diagnosis changes in muscle and adipose tissue features (aim 2) and OS and DFS. Models will include molecular tumor characteristics as predictors of these longitudinal trajectories. Impact. These results will provide crucial insight into the relationship between body composition changes and outcomes among ccrcc patients, and potentially identify tumor-related characteristics driving these associations. These results will resolve apparent paradoxes around the relationship between obesity and ccrcc mortality and identify potential targets for nutrition and physical activity interventions on body composition.