Kidney Cancer

Case History: 60-year-old man with mild right side abdominal discomfort and hepatomegaly found to have large right renal mass during CT scan.

A study of patient preference revealed that patients who participated in a crossover trial of pazopanib and sunitinib for metastatic renal cell carcinoma preferred treatment with pazopanib.

Patients receiving treatment with sunitinib for advanced renal cell carcinoma experienced worse treatment-related fatigue during the first cycle of treatment with symptoms lessening after subsequent consecutive cycles.

A history of significant cigarette smoking adversely affected overall survival in patients who underwent surgery for clear-cell renal cell carcinoma, according to the results of a recent study.

The FGF inhibitor dovitinib failed to improve progression-free survival outcomes as a third-line treatment for patients with metastatic renal cell carcinoma compared with sorafenib, according to the results of a new study.

New research shows that tumors found in obese patients may be more indolent than those in nonobese patients, and this may, in part, be related to alterations in fatty acid metabolism explaining the obesity paradox in clear-cell renal cell carcinoma.

The order of the sequencing of sorafenib and sunitinib for first-line and second-line therapy did not affect progression-free and overall survival for patients with advanced renal cell carcinoma.

The use of angiotensin system inhibitors significantly improved the survival of patients with metastatic RCC who were on the drug for the treatment of hypertension, according to the results of a retrospective study presented at the ASCO GU Symposium.

Expressive writing is a brief and simple intervention that a recent study showed helped to reduce cancer-related symptoms and improved physical functioning in patients with renal cell carcinoma.

Expression of BAP1 could help identify which clear-cell renal cell carcinoma patients diagnosed with low-risk disease are the most likely to progress.

Individuals diagnosed with kidney cancer at age 46 or younger are more likely to have hereditary disease, according to a new study.

In two phase III trials, the mTOR inhibitor temsirolimus failed to improved progression-free survival outcomes for patients with metastatic renal cell carcinoma compared with other therapeutic options.

Tumor shrinkage is a valid indicator of response to VEGF inhibition among patients with metastatic renal cell carcinoma when evaluated by a single radiologist observer.

The second generation VEGFR inhibitor axitinib did not significantly improve progression-free survival in first-line treatment of patients with metastatic renal cell carcinoma compared with patients treated with sorafenib.

Image-guided radiofrequency ablation may be an effective alternative treatment for small renal cell carcinoma tumors, according to the results of a recent study.

Results of a recent study indicate that patient progression-free survival at 3 months and 6 months was predictive of the overall survival among metastatic RCC patients treated with interferon alpha and bevacizumab.

The mTOR inhibitor everolimus showed clinical efficacy for the initial treatment of advanced papillary renal cell carcinoma, according to the phase II results of the RAPTOR trial.

The results of the study comparing Aveo’s tivozanib to sorafenib for the treatment of metastatic renal cell carcinoma showed no improvement in overall survival, the basis for the FDA’s rejection of the company’s new drug application earlier this year.

The patient is a 66-year-old male who presented to his primary care physician with a 3-week history of painless gross hematuria. He underwent a renal ultrasound that showed a left kidney mass.

A head-to-head comparison of pazopanib and sunitinib for the treatment of metastatic renal cell carcinoma showed that the two drugs resulted in similar progression-free survival, but also indicated that pazopanib may have a favorable safety profile.

Surgeons saw advantages in robotic, over laparoscopic, ultrasound probes during robotic partial nephrectomy, and similar perioperative outcomes and margin rates.

Undergoing nephron-sparing surgery for small renal masses substantially reduced the risk of moderate renal dysfunction compared with radical nephrectomy, but not that of kidney failure among patients enrolled in the EORTC 30904 trial.

General practitioners took longer to suspect a diagnosis of bladder or renal cancer in women compared with men, according to a recent study.

A high skeletal muscle density has been linked to a twofold prolonged survival in patients with metastatic renal cell carcinoma compared with patients with low muscle density, according to a new study.

There has never been a referendum on IL-2. True, in the era of paradigm-shifting therapies, IL-2 may be overlooked at times, but it must not be excluded from the conversation.

Ultimately, as agents in both VEGF-targeted and immunotherapy classes with lower toxicity rates are developed, questions of combination and sequence will inspire clinical investigations of strategies that, it is hoped, will maximize both the quantity and quality of life for patients with RCC. Melanoma therapy drug development continues to lead the way with regard to what is therapeutically possible with immunotherapy-and suggests that HD IL-2 continues to be relevant in today’s treatment landscape.

In this review, we examine the currently approved options available for these disease processes, including the newer agents and selected combinatorial approaches under investigation, and we attempt to identify the role of high-dose IL-2 in the context of current clinical practice.

Bone metastases result in poorer outcomes for those patients with advanced renal cell carcinoma (RCC), who were treated with a molecularly targeted therapy. The results were presented in two separate analyses at the annual ASCO meeting.

The mTOR inhibitor everolimus failed to prove progression-free survival noninferiority compared with the VEGF-targeting tyrosine kinase inhibitor sunitinib when given as first-line treatment in patients with metastatic renal cell carcinoma.

Researchers observed durable responses in patients with renal cell carcinoma treated with the PD-L1 antibody MPDL3280A. The study, which was presented at the 2013 ASCO Annual Meeting, was one of the few immune therapy trials that allowed patients with non-clear cell histologies and some clinical activity was observed in these patients.