Previous studies identified increased urinary and serum LCN-2 in RCC patients without an association to disease type, tumour stage or grade.14,15 However, tissue LCN-2 protein positively correlated with histological grades of ccRCC and pRCC.26 Due to the low sample number for high-grade tumours, we could not draw any significant conclusion if LCN-2 protein might be associated with tumour grade and/or stage, which remains to be addressed in further studies. The gene discussed is LCN2; the disease is nonpapillary renal cell carcinoma.