Renal-Cell Carcinoma

Surgery is typically the gold standard for patients with biopsy-proven, clear cell, renal cell carcinoma with no evidence of metastatic disease, said Eric Jonasch, MD, in a session during the 2023 National Comprehensive Cancer Network Conference. In this setting, there is probably not a role for systemic neoadjuvant treatment, as response rates of 15% to 45% have been recorded with axitinib (Inlyta), sunitinib (Sutent), and other tyrosine kinase inhibitors.

The decision to use adjuvant therapies in patients with renal-cell carcinoma (RCC) should be based on risk, patient goals, and shared decision-making. This topic was explored in a presentation by Matthew Zibelman, MD, Associate Professor, Hematology/Oncology, Fox Chase Cancer Center, Philadelphia, PA, at the 2023 American Society of Clinical Oncology Genitourinary Cancers Symposium.

Adjuvant pembrolizumab (Keytruda) continued to provide a disease-free survival (DFS) benefit in patients with renal-cell carcinoma (RCC) at intermediate-high or high risk of recurrence after nephrectomy, according to 30-month follow-up data from the KEYNOTE-564 trial presented at the 2022 ASCO Genitourinary Cancers Symposium.

Treatment with the checkpoint inhibitor pembrolizumab (Keytruda) following surgery significantly extended disease-free survival (DFS) in patients with high-risk, clear-cell renal-cell carcinoma (RCC) compared with placebo, according to the results of the KEYNOTE-564 clinical trial. These findings were reported during a plenary session of the ASCO 2021 virtual annual meeting.

San Francisco, CA—The era of immunotherapy has opened new perspectives in renal-cell carcinoma (RCC), which is one of the tumors most highly infiltrated with CD T-cells and PD-1 expression, partially accounting for its sensitivity to immunotherapy. Other mechanisms to explain its sensitivity include myeloid infiltration, metabolic alterations, loss-of-function mutations, and human endogenous retroviruses.

Copenhagen, Denmark—The current standard for the first-line targeted treatment of metastatic renal-cell carcinoma (RCC) came out on the short end of a randomized comparison with the new multikinase inhibitor cabozantinib (Cabometyx), according to results reported at the 2016 European Society for Medical Oncology Congress.

Copenhagen, Denmark—For the first time, a randomized clinical trial has shown that adjuvant therapy improves outcomes in patients with clear-cell renal-cell carcinoma (RCC). Adjuvant treatment with sunitinib (Sutent) improved disease-free survival (DFS) by >1 year in patients with high-risk locoregional RCC after nephrectomy, according to results from the S-TRAC clinical trial. Although this is encouraging news, at the 2016 European Society for Medical Oncology Congress some experts noted they were not ready to adopt it as a new standard of care, because of the associated toxicity and lack of an overall survival benefit.