‘Number of Unanswered Questions’ Remain About Role of Stereotactic Radiation in Metastatic Kidney Cancer

There are a number of “unanswered questions” regarding the role of stereotactic radiation in the management of metastatic kidney cancer, according to Raquibul Hannan, MD, PhD.

At the 2022 Society for Urologic Oncology (SUO) Annual Meeting, CancerNetwork^® spoke with Hannan about his presentation on clinically managing metastatic kidney cancer with the use of stereotactic radiation.

Hannan, a professor in the Department of Radiation Oncology, Urology and Immunology at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, said that delaying systemic therapy for oligometastatic disease in favor of stereotactic radiation and ensuring long-term overall survival among patients pose questions that he and his institution aim to address with future research.

Transcript:

So, [there are] a number of unanswered questions. All of these patients we're treating with oligometastases, also [have] micro-metastatic disease, [also known as] disease that we cannot see. The real question is: are we doing a favor to this patient by delaying this systemic therapy, where we are allowing these micro-metastases to grow? And in the short term, of course, we are seeing very good local control rates, but in the long run, are we affecting overall survival? That's one of the critical questions, and to answer that question, we recently designed and got approval to do a large, randomized phase 3, non-inferiority study with overall survival as one of the co-primary endpoints, where we will do just that. This is the ECOG-EAH-211-SOLE trial that we are expected to open in the summer of 2023.