We expect that future studies designed to identify prognostic relevant lncRNAs in RCC patients will be able to present some candidates, because altered expression of specific lncRNAs was predictive of cancer-specific survival in former studies on other human malignancies; i.e. upregulation of HOTAIR in breast cancer [20] and SChLAP1 in prostate cancer patients [21] was associated with a poor prognosis. Here, HOTAIR is linked to renal cell carcinoma.