Novel therapies and new insights in rare genitourinary tumors

Many cancers of the genitals and urinary tract are rare diseases; these are diseases that affect less than 200,000 people in the United States. Many rare genitourinary tumors such as penile cancer and pure variant histologies of bladder cancer have poor prognoses and are not a priority for industry-led clinical trials. Therefore, these tumors may lack well-defined standards of care, and management is typically extrapolated from more common tumors with uncertain outcomes. Management is also derived from small, usually non-randomized trials or even retrospective studies. Research in these tumors is challenging for multiple reasons including poor accrual, lack of specific funding, lack of industry interest, and is largely championed by scientists and investigators in large academic centers and patient advocacy groups.The aim of this special issue is to showcase clinical and pre-clinical research on rare genitourinary tumors such as penile cancer, pure bladder squamous cell carcinoma, bladder adenocarcinoma and renal medullary cancer. Trials in rare genitourinary cancers are small and mostly non-randomized. It would be of interest to collate and compare findings of these trials to help guide clinical practice and formulate new research ideas. It would also be of significant interest to review pre-clinical studies to improve our understanding of these tumors and to generate hypotheses for clinical studies. Finally, we are also interested in reviewing qualitative studies on these tumors covering topics such as sexual function and quality of life.We welcome original research, systematic reviews, reviews, and perspectives or commentaries. The following are examples of clinical and/or pre-clinical topics that would be of interest: • biomarker research such as surface markers and genomics. • clinical trials of novel agents in these diseases. • reviews of current guidelines and recommended therapies in the localized and/or metastatic settings. • real world data. • radiologic, pathologic, molecular or genomic characteristics. • pre-clinical experiments of novel agents. • health disparities and epidemiology. Submitted articles should ideally focus on one tumor type. Topic editors: Daniel Da Motta Girardi, Sandeep Gurram, Nicholas Simon, Elias Chandran, Ioanna Maria Grypari Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/79718/novel-therapies-and-new-insights-in-rare-genitourinary-tumors