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 Annual 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, sunitinib, and other tyrosine kinase inhibitors.

The neoadjuvant combination of avelumab (Bavencio) and axitinib (Inlyta) resulted in a partial response (PR) rate of 30% in patients with localized renal-cell carcinoma (RCC) at high risk for relapse after nephrectomy, according to results from the phase 2 NeoAvAx clinical trial.

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.

In a keynote address during the virtual 2020 International Kidney Cancer Symposium, William G. Kaelin Jr, MD, Sidney Farber Professor of Medicine, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, MA, provided an update on treatment strategies aimed at improving outcomes for patients with clear-cell renal-cell carcinoma (RCC) caused by inactivation of the VHL gene.

The treatment of renal-cell carcinoma (RCC) continues to evolve with the development of more effective front-line regimens.

There has been an increased focus on the study of tumor alterations that may predict treatment benefit or serve as possible actionable targets in cancer. During the virtual American Urological Association 2020 Annual Meeting, Kyrollis Attalla, MD, Urology Oncology Fellow, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, Ridgewood, NY, discussed findings of a recent study that looked at the landscape of actionable genomic alterations and the corresponding evidence to support these alterations as predictive of response to targeted therapy in patients with renal-cell carcinoma (RCC).

San Francisco, CA—Treatment with the novel agent MK-6482 led to promising results in a phase 1/2 clinical trial of patients with metastatic clear-cell renal-cell carcinoma (RCC).

First-line therapy with pembrolizumab (Keytruda) plus ­axitinib (Inlyta) significantly improved overall survival (OS), progression-free survival (PFS), and objective response rates compared with standard-of-care sunitinib (Sutent) in patients with clear-cell metastatic renal-cell carcinoma (RCC) in KEYNOTE-426.

Another Approval for Keytruda