Wang L, et al. - Researchers assessed the prognostic influence of the expression of base excision repair (BER) pathway, stimulator of interferon genes (STING) pathway and tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) on disease-free survival (DFS) and overall survival (OS) in upper urinary tract urothelial carcinoma (UTUC). They also focused on the relationship between these makers. Among 88 UTUC patients, the evaluation of immunohistochemical expression of BER pathway (APE1, NTH1, OGG1, XRCC1, polβ), STING pathway [STING, interferon regulatory factor3 (IRF3)], TILs (CD4, CD8, CD20) and PD-L1, PD-L2 was done to find out the predictive value in DFS, OS and the association between them. They found that the prognosis was independently predicted by DNA damage, IRF3 and TILs. Clinical evidence showing the ability of DNA damage repair-activated STING pathway in inducing the recruitment and activation of TILs was also generated, which is compatible with preclinical models.