Background:
Adrenocortical carcinoma (ACC) is a rare form of cancer that affects the adrenal glands. The prognosis of ACC is poor with patients having a 5-year survival of 15 to 44%1. This high mortality rate is due to the silent nature of non-functioning ACC resulting in a late diagnosis when the patient has locally advanced or metastatic disease2.
Previous studies to understand ACC patient outcomes have focused on gene expression or functionally related copy number alterations (CNAs) 3. Recent work has demonstrated that total CNA burden is a predictor of long-term survival across a range of cancers4. However, an association between CNA burden and ACC survival has yet to be identified.
Aims and objectives:
The overall aim of this project is to identify an association between genomic instability (measured by total copy number alteration burden – also known as tumour mutation burden) and survival outcomes of ACC.
The main objectives of this project are to use copy number alterations (CNA) in a cohort of ACC patients on the cBioPortal for Cancer Genomics5.
To identify differing survival outcomes based on each patient’s total CNA burden.
Determine if this CNA burden is dependent on cancer stage.
To develop a way to identify high-risk patients using a CNA burden threshold.
To provide genomics information for ongoing research at University Hospital Galway involving my academic supervisor’s collaborators, Dr. McGarel and Prof. C. Dennedy.
Hypothesis:
Total copy number alteration burden in adrenocortical carcinoma is a prognostic indicator for survival outcome.
