The investigators aim to analyze tumors from vHL patients who have different courses of disease and different types of VHL gene alterations to characterize which types of genetic alterations the tumors contain and how these alterations affect the tumor cells' behavior on a molecular level. The investigators will then compare these observations to vHL disease outcome in patients and families. It is already known that most vHL tumors develop when both copies of the VHL gene in a cell are inactivated. The first copy is inactivated in all the person's cells from birth ("first hit"), leaving just one functional copy. A tumor can develop from cells where the second copy is also inactivated ("second hit"). So far, only the molecular consequences of the first hit have been investigated. It is our hypothesis that both the first and second hits in combination have consequences for tumor development and clinical outcome. The investigators will include tumors from patients with different disease courses and different types of "first hits" and analyse the tumors' DNA in order to find correlations between the first and second hits and patients' and families' medical histories. The investigators hereby hope to give new insights into how vHL tumors grow and which genetic factors influence tumor development. These results will contribute to the current knowledge of vHL and help us get one step closer to be able to predict an individual's tumor risks and need for surveillance.
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Residual pVHL activity measured by amount of VHL mRNA in tumor cells
Timeframe: Two years