Anthony Berberabe, MPH

Results from a prospective study involving 15,045 tumor samples that underwent next-generation sequencing using MSK-IMPACT and microsatellite-instability testing demonstrate that MSI-high and DNA mismatch-repair deficient tumors are predictive of Lynch syndrome across all tumor types. The results suggest that LS-associated cancers may be more heterogeneous than previously suspected.

In an ideal world, researchers conduct preclinical studies that generate a targeted therapy, which eventually makes its way through early, middle, and late-stage trial development and FDA approval. That smooth transition does not happen often, but early results involving an agent that affects 2 endogenous inhibitors of p53 look promising.

Although patients who develop brain metastases from renal cell carcinoma typically have poor outcomes, investigators from Yale University have identified a subset of patients who demonstrated extended survival.¹Those patients with a single metastasis were less likely to develop central nervous system\ recurrence after local therapy. This is an encouraging development because these patients have historically been excluded from participating in clinical trials and receiving aggressive treatment regimens.

The treatment combination of the tyrosine kinase inhibitor axitinib plus pembrolizumab was tolerable in 52 patients with treatment-naïve advanced renal cell carcinoma, and the combination demonstrated promising antitumor activity, according to the lead researcher from Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center in Washington, DC.

Patients who have intermediate or poor-risk advanced renal cell carcinoma may see extended progression-free survival and overall survival in a phase II trial comparing pazopanib with temsirolimus, according to a presentation by Nizar M. Tannir, MD, FACP, at the 2018 Genitourinary Cancers Symposium.