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The recent 2012 Genitourinary Cancers Symposium featured a wealth of presentations on prostate, bladder, kidney, and other genitourinary cancers. Brief summaries of some of the oral and poster sessions are presented. Exercise and Recurrence Vigorous exercise has been shown to reduce cancer...
New analyses from a phase III clinical trial of patients with previously treated advanced kidney cancer demonstrated that patients of all risk levels experience more benefit from cabozantinib (Cometriq) than from the current standard of care, everolimus (Afinitor). The greater activity of...
The National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) Clinical Practice Guidelines in Oncology have become the most widely used guidelines in oncology practice. The Guidelines cover 97% of all patients with cancer and are continually updated by expert panels. The 2012 Guidelines include some completely...
Following recent clinical trial data from the European Organisation for Research and Treatment (EORTC) showing a survival benefit for patients with small kidney cancers treated with radical vs partial nephrectomy, an analysis using linked Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) and...
More attention is being paid to the importance of patient preference as a factor in treatment selection. An innovative randomized, double-blind study in patients with metastatic kidney cancer demonstrates that quality of life and side effects drive patient preference.1 Results also suggest that...
The novel tyrosine kinase inhibitor tivozanib was superior to sorafenib (Nexavar) for the treatment of advanced renal cell carcinoma in the phase III TIVO-1 trial.1 Tivozanib is a potent, selective inhibitor of vascular endothelial growth factor receptors 1, 2, and 3, with a long half-life that is...
Over the past few years, we have gone from famine to feast.… We now have sorafenib [Nexavar] and sunitinib [Sutent], temsirolimus [Torisel], and everolimus [Afinitor], and interferon plus bevacizumab [Avastin] for treatment of metastatic renal cell carcinoma. If these drugs [in COMPARZ] are...
Pazopanib (Votrient) is poised to become another option for first-line therapy of metastatic renal cell carcinoma based on results of the phase III COMPARZ trial reported at the 2012 ESMO Congress in Vienna.1 The study met its primary endpoint by demonstrating that pazopanib was noninferior to...
For the majority of patients with nephroblastoma and pulmonary metastases, pulmonary radiotherapy can be omitted and the patients will still have a relatively good outcome, according to a study published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. “The rationale of omitting pulmonary [radiotherapy] for...
immatics biotechnologies GmbH announced that the cancer vaccine IMA901 has been granted orphan drug designation from the FDA for the treatment of renal cell carcinoma (RCC) in HLA-A*02 positive patients. The FDA grants orphan drug designation to novel drugs aimed at treating rare diseases or...
If the therapy combinations tested in the BeST trial don’t deserve to move on to phase III trials, what other combinations do show enough promise against renal cell carcinoma to merit being tested in phase III trials? “None at the present time,” maintained Bernard Escudier, MD, of the Institut...
My brother, Rick Thomas, is a great guy. I’m not just saying that because he’s my brother. He’s funny, warm, and kind to everyone he meets. He became a commercial airline pilot for American Airlines after flying C-5s in the Air Force for 12 years and has always been a responsible person and a...
Positron-emission tomography/computed tomography (PET/CT) with iodine-124 (124I) –girentuximab “can accurately and noninvasively identify” clear cell renal cell carcinoma, according to a phase III multicenter study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. In addition, “PET/CT with...
Renal cell carcinoma is the most common form of adult kidney cancer and the third most common urologic malignancy, accounting for about 2% of all malignancies and 2% of cancer-related deaths worldwide. It is also one of the most difficult cancers to detect and treat because it is usually found...
Early detection of renal cell carcinoma using biomarkers remains challenging. Kim and colleagues recently evaluated a three-marker assay consisting of nicotinamide N-methyltransferase (NNMT), L-plastin (LCP1), and nonmetastatic cells 1 protein (NM23A). After validation of the three-marker assay in...
Attendees at the 2013 Genitourinary Cancers Symposium in Orlando, Florida, were brought up to date with the latest news on cancers of the prostate, testes, bladder, and kidney. Below are selected highlights from the meeting describing findings of noteworthy abstracts to extend our regular news...
Survivors of childhood cancer have an increased risk of subsequent renal cancers compared to the general population, researchers reported in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. The risk is particularly high among survivors of neuroblastoma and those who have had irradiation involving the...
The phase III open-label AXIS trial comparing axitinib (Inlyta) vs sorafenib (Nexavar) as second-line treatment for metastatic renal cell carcinoma showed significantly prolonged independent radiology committee–assessed progression-free survival with axitinib treatment (hazard ratio [HR] = 0.665, P ...
An expert panel of 13 urologic and medical oncologists worked together to identify 23 quality indicators for renal cell carcinoma, as described in an article in the Journal of Oncology Practice. “These 23 [quality indicators] will provide a means of evaluating the quality of [renal cell carcinoma]...
The phase III open-label AXIS trial comparing axitinib (Inlyta) vs sorafenib (Nexavar) as second-line treatment for metastatic renal cell carcinoma has shown a significant difference in median progression-free survival (8.3 months in the axitinib group vs 5.7 months in the sorafenib group; hazard...
Investigators in The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) Research Network have uncovered a connection between how tumor cells use energy from metabolic processes and the aggressiveness of the most common form of kidney cancer, clear cell renal cell carcinoma. Their findings demonstrate that normal...
With the approval of a number of different drugs for the treatment of metastatic renal cell carcinoma, a major issue is how to sequence these drugs to optimize outcome. A large, randomized phase II study called RECORD-3 shows that the standard sequence of the multitargeted tyrosine kinase inhibitor ...
Over the past decade, the field of metastatic renal cell carcinoma therapy has witnessed the development of multiple drugs targeting the vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) pathway, based on the underlying biology of renal cell carcinoma that leads to reliance on angiogenic signaling. The...
Pazopanib (Votrient) and sunitinib (Sutent) have been shown to provide progression-free survival benefit compared with placebo or interferon in phase III trials in metastatic renal cell carcinoma. In a noninferiority trial reported in The New England Journal of Medicine by Robert J. Motzer, MD, of...
The 2013 European Cancer Congress (ECC), held September 27 to October 1 in Amsterdam, was jointly sponsored by the European Society of Medical Oncology, the European Cancer Organization, and the European Society of Radiation Oncology. With the Congress theme being “Reinforcing Multidisciplinarity,” ...
I’ve been blessed with good health for most of my life, and I was careful to keep it that way. I don’t smoke, I eat a healthy diet, and I maintain a healthy weight. I also was fortunate to be born with pretty good genes and have no family history of cancer. In fact, except for an occasional...
The investigational agent tivozanib is a selective tyrosine kinase inhibitor of vascular endothelial growth factor receptor (VEGFR)-1, -2, and -3. In a phase III trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Robert J. Motzer, MD, of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC), and...
The explosion of new therapies for metastatic renal cell carcinoma is a welcome advance, but studies have not yet defined optimal sequencing of the newer therapies. According to the phase III SWITCH trial, it matters little whether therapy for metastatic renal cell carcinoma begins with sorafenib...
Prior to the advent of targeted therapy, cytoreductive nephrectomy was associated with a 6-month improvement in overall survival in patients with metastatic renal cell carcinoma. With new and better targeted therapies for the disease, the appropriate use of cytoreductive nephrectomy has been...
The 10th Genitourinary Cancers Symposium, sponsored by ASCO, the American Society for Radiation Oncology, and the Society of Urologic Oncology, was held January 29–February 1, 2014, in San Francisco. The more than 630 abstracts presented addressed essential research in genitourinary malignancies,...
Cancer Immunotherapy What is the role of immunotherapy in the treatment of metastatic renal cell carcinoma? The harnessing of the immune system as an effective treatment for cancer was recently selected by the journal Science as the top scientific Breakthrough of the Year for 2013.1 With this...
First-Line Therapy Please describe current medical oncology approaches to first-line therapy for metastatic renal cell carcinoma. The current first-line therapy for most patients with good- to intermediate-risk metastatic renal cell carcinoma is a vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) receptor...
During the course of the 2014 Genitourinary Cancers Symposium, The ASCO Post had the opportunity to speak with several of the world’s leading authorities about the state of the art in screening, diagnosis, and treatment for prostate and kidney cancers. In this second installment of a two-part...
In the past few months, numerous presentations from this year’s ASCO Annual Meeting have been covered in depth in the pages of The ASCO Post and online at ASCOPost.com. The brief summaries below capture additional important highlights that have not been covered thus far. We hope you will find them...
Renal cell carcinoma can be added to the growing list of tumors that respond to programmed death (PD)-1 immune checkpoint inhibitors, according to the results of the CheckMate trials, presented at the 2014 ASCO Annual Meeting. The phase II CheckMate-010 trial evaluated three doses of nivolumab as a ...
The information in this Clinical Trials Resource Guide includes actively recruiting clinical studies for patients with kidney cancer. The list includes a pilot study and observational, randomized, and nonrandomized phase II and phase III studies evaluating new therapies, combination therapies,...
Keck Medical Center of the University of Southern California (USC) has become the first medical center in the world to use a new robotic technology in an outpatient procedure for a patient with kidney cancer. Urologic surgeons at the USC Institute of Urology, part of Keck Medicine of USC, used a...
Researchers have found that patients with an advanced form of kidney cancer, for which there is no standard treatment and a very poor prognosis, respond well to a combination of two existing anticancer drugs. The combination of bevacizumab (Avastin) and erlotinib (Tarceva) produced excellent...
The approval of multiple inhibitors of either the VEGF or mTOR pathway provided an incremental advance in the treatment of metastatic clear cell renal cancer. However, the agents have several important limitations: For example, the optimal clinical effect appears to be dependent on chronic...
In a randomized phase II trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Robert J. Motzer, MD, of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, and colleagues found that the programmed cell death protein-1 (PD-1) immune checkpoint inhibitor antibody nivolumab (Opdivo) was associated with...
Adjuvant therapy with sorafenib (Nexavar) or sunitinib (Sutent) failed to make any inroads in improving disease-free survival in patients with locally advanced kidney cancer in the randomized, placebo-controlled, multicenter, phase III Adjuvant Sorafenib and Sunitinib for Unfavorable Renal...
The quality and quantity of original research presented at the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) Annual Conference continue to grow since poster sessions debuted a few years ago. The ASCO Post offers summaries for just a few that caught our eye, out of more than 65 presented this year....
Data from two phase III studies led by the Children’s Oncology Group show that augmenting or intensifying therapy for children with high-risk Wilms tumor improved relapse-free survival. These children are deemed to be at high risk due to a specific chromosomal abnormality that confers worse...
In a study reported in The Lancet Oncology and reviewed in this issue of The ASCO Post, Brian Rini, MD, of the Cleveland Clinic Taussig Cancer Institute, and colleagues showed that a 16-gene assay recurrence score could predict postoperative outcome in patients with stage I to III clear cell renal...
In a study reported in The Lancet Oncology, Brian Rini, MD, of the Cleveland Clinic Taussig Cancer Institute, and colleagues developed a 16-gene assay and recurrence score that predicted postoperative outcome in patients with stage I to III clear cell renal cell carcinoma.1 Development Phase In the ...
The combination of lenvatinib (Lenvima) plus everolimus (Afinitor) significantly extended progression-free survival compared with everolimus alone in metastatic renal cell carcinoma, according to a randomized phase II trial.1 Median progression-free survival for patients who received the...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted lenvatinib (Lenvima) Breakthrough Therapy designation for investigational use in patients with advanced or metastatic renal cell carcinoma who were previously treated with a vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF)-targeted therapy. Lenvatinib...
Until I was diagnosed with stage III renal cell carcinoma in early 2008, I had no firsthand experience with cancer. To my knowledge, there is no history of cancer in my immediate family, and despite a smoking habit I picked up when I was young, I had been in relatively good health in the 56 years...
Patients with metastatic renal cell carcinoma treated with tyrosine kinase inhibitors in real-world clinical practice tend to be older and sicker than the patients enrolled in pivotal clinical trials of these agents. In addition, patients with metastatic renal cell carcinoma treated with the mTOR...
The CheckMate 025 trial, reported in The New England Journal of Medicine by Robert J. Motzer, MD, and colleagues, showed that treatment with the programmed cell death protein (PD-1) checkpoint inhibitor nivolumab (Opdivo) increased overall survival vs the mTOR inhibitor everolimus (Afinitor) in...