Succinate dehydrogenase A deficient renal cell carcinoma: A rare renal tumor distinct from typical Succinate dehydrogenase deficient renal cell carcinoma.

Succinate dehydrogenase (SDH)-deficient renal cell carcinoma (RCC) is a rare subtype of RCC classified as a molecularly defined RCC in the fifth edition of the WHO. Most gene alterations in patients with SDH-deficient RCC involve the SDHB subunit, with less involvement of the SDHC, SDHA, and SDHD subunits. Four cases of SDHA-deficient RCC have been reported in the literature, of which one case was associated with an NF2 gene mutation. Herein, we report six novel SDHA-deficient RCC cases, including two cases with NF2 gene mutations. In contrast to the typical morphology of SDH-deficient RCC, the six tumors mainly displayed glandular, sheet-like, or papillary growth patterns with prominent nucleoli (Grades 2-3), among which two cases with NF2 mutations had prominent nucleoli (Grade 3), large transparent vacuoles in the cytoplasm, and a large number of lymphocytes in the stroma. Six tumors showed negative immunohistochemical staining for SDHA and SDHB, and three cases presented with high expression of PD-L1. Second-generation sequencing revealed novel pathogenic somatic SDHA gene mutation and NF2 gene mutations in six and two tumors, respectively. Follow-up data were collected for the six patients with a follow-up time ranging from 7 to 268 months, and all six patients have survived to date. One patient received targeted therapy for tumor metastasis to the lungs after seven months, and another patient with an NF2 gene mutation received immunotherapy for lymph node metastasis revealed during surgery. SDHA-deficient RCCs with NF2 gene mutations have the ability to metastasize but might respond well to immunotherapy. For the first time, we report the largest number of SDHA-deficient RCC cases and comprehensively investigate their clinicopathological and molecular features to provide important guidance for diagnosis and clinical immunotherapy.

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Declaration of Competing Interest All authors declare that we have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.